Nevermore
by Hikari-chan
Summary: Conan's junior high graduation trip turns into a nightmare when other guests at the ski resort are murdered and his classmates start going missing. Fits with September Summers universe. Conan/Ai. Shounen Tanteidan.
1. Prologue

**Nevermore**

By: Hikari-chan (Chitsuki)

Disclaimer: Detective Conan and all its recognizable elements belong to Gosho Aoyama. This was written for entertainment purposes only and I make no profit from this.

**Preface**: This story follows "September Summers", meaning it happens in the same universe. If you haven't read it, don't worry. Even though I wrote this with the assumption that SS was read, you can probably pick up most of what has happened between reading this Prologue and the upcoming Chapter 1. The only things you really need to know are: Conan has moved back into the Kudo mansion, Conan & Ai have been together since the fall of their 3rd year of junior high, and officially, the Shounen Tanteidan was dispersed (although they all remain very good friends).

**Musings**: I'll keep this short. 1) I always write the _process_ of Conan and Ai _getting_ together and I wanted to write something where they _are_ together. 2) I've never written a mystery and thought I'd give it a shot.

I welcome you to try solving this with Conan. :) Enjoy~

-o-o-o-o-o-

_Prologue_

-o-o-o-o-o-

The bell at Teitan Junior High School ran at exactly 4:00PM, signaling the end of the school day. For the third year students, it also meant going home to pack for their junior high graduation trip, which would start the next day. The graduating class was headed up to a new ski resort about an hour out of Sapporo, and would get to partake in some history lessons about the town on top of skiing and snowboarding at the resort. To say the class was filled with animated excitement would be an understatement.

"Conan-kun! Ai-chan!" Yoshida Ayumi bounced over enthusiastically, her eyes sparkling with anticipation. "Are you guys excited?"

"Thrilled," Haibara Ai smiled. She stood up and started packing her books.

"I heard the Yukihome Resort has pretty good hills," Edogawa Conan added. "So it should be fun."

"Conan!" Kojima Genta jogged over with Tsuburaya Mitsuhiko to join their group. "I'm going to learn to snowboard! Then, I'm going to race you down that hill."

Conan grinned. "Remember to bring snowpants," he suggested.

"Edogawa-kun," a couple of female voices rang out.

Conan looked up to see some girls from the other class waving at him from the doorway of the classroom.

"See you tomorrow!" they called out before giggling and heading down the hall.

"Yea…." He trailed off. Confused, he looked up at his best friends to find them all staring at him. "What?"

"Conan-kun," Ayumi scolded. "You shouldn't encourage other girls like that."

"Huh?"

Mitsuhiko sighed. "Half the girls at this school have a crush on you. Ayumi-chan means that you shouldn't lead them on."

"They do?" Conan frowned. "But I haven't done anything. And it's not exactly a secret that I already have a girlfriend."

Ai sighed and rubbed his head affectionately, messing up his hair in the process.

"Hey!" he protested.

"I can't even be mad at you, can I?" she rolled her eyes. "You're so thick it'd be unfair for me to blame you."

"I haven't done anything!" Conan scowled at her.

"Come on, Casanova," Ai replied. "Let's head home. We all have to pack, and I have to cook dinner."

The group of five gathered their belongings and started to head out, stopping along the hallways to chat with some classmates about the graduation trip and other extra-curricular activities. Conan and Genta promised the soccer team to join them on a group skiing activity one afternoon and Ai agreed to be their judge if it turns into a competition. Mitsuhiko chatted with some of his friends from the computer club while Ayumi struck up conversation with practically everyone in the grade since she knew almost everyone by name. It was an hour later by the time they actually made it to the road and started their familiar walk home.

Ayumi, Genta, and Mitsuhiko separated from Conan and Ai at the usual intersection. The couple watched them cross the street, then Conan threaded his fingers with Ai's and headed in the direction of Professor Agasa's house and the Kudo mansion.

"So," Conan began. "Are you actually excited about this trip or just appeasing Ayumi-chan?"

Ai smiled. "Neither. I'm looking forward to it because I've never been on a school trip, but I wouldn't say 'excited', per se." She paused, then asked, "Are you going to be okay rooming with Kojima-kun?"

Conan sighed. "I hope so," he whispered.

She gave his hand a gentle squeeze but remained quiet for the rest of the walk, leaving him to his thoughts. They reached the professor's house first, and Conan released Ai's hand so she can grab the mail.

"Come over after you pack," Ai instructed. "I'll be making extra food so Hakase doesn't feel the need to binge on junk while we're gone."

"Ah, I'll see you in a bit then," Conan replied. He kissed her on the cheek and watched as she gave him a small wave and headed through the gates of the professor's home.

He smiled as he walked the remaining 20 feet to his own house. Some days, he really did wonder how he had ended up here; doing junior high school a second time with those energetic children he called his best friends, but still being pretty happy with life. He reached into the mailbox labeled "Kudo" and retrieved the mail before pushing open the gate and heading into the house.

Tossing his school bag onto the floor of the foyer, he deftly flipped through the letters. There were some bills, a couple of advertisements, and at the end of the stack, a plain black envelope. Conan blinked curiously and set the rest of the mail onto the foyer table. The black envelope was made of high quality paper – he could tell just by feeling the weight of it – and unaddressed, with no stamp or postmark. He turned it over and ripped it open. Inside was a single black card. In ornate white lettering, the card read:

_"All that we see or seem  
Is but a (dream within a'' dream)  
CL"_

Conan frowned at it. He looked inside the envelope; there was nothing else. Reading the card again, he mentally translated the message from the English into his native Japanese. It seemed…odd.

Turning around, he put his shoes back on and made his way back out the gates and down the street, stopping in front of Agasa's house. He opened the door with the spare key the professor had given him and headed inside.

"Ai?" he called. "Hakase?"

"That packing was fast," Ai's voice replied as she came into the foyer with a wet mixing bowl in her hands. "I realize you're not good at anything but deduction and soccer, but tossing everything haphazardly into a suitcase is _not_ packing."

"Uh, no," Conan said. "I didn't start packing yet." At Ai's questioning look, he held up the card he received in the mail. "I got this in the mail and I'm not sure what to make of it."

Ai signaled for him to follow her into the kitchen. Agasa was sitting at the kitchen counter, flipping through some research notes. He looked up when Conan and Ai walked in.

"Ah, Shinichi," he greeted Conan. "How did packing go?"

"I haven't started," Conan repeated for the professor. "I got a weird card in the mail."

The professor looked curious as Conan handed Ai the note. She read it, blinked in puzzlement, and read it again before looking up at them.

"It's Poe," she announced.

Agasa frowned. "What's a poe?"

"No, I mean it's Edgar Allan Poe," Ai clarified. "From the poem '_A Dream Within a Dream_'. He was a famous short story and poetry writer in the 1800's."

Conan took the card back and read it again. Yes, that's right. Since it was poetry, it made a lot more sense to read it in its original English. "Poe is credited with the creation of the detective genre of literature," he added for the professor's benefit. "Arthur Conan Doyle credited the origins of Sherlock Holmes to him."

"I'm surprised you didn't recognize it right away," Ai commented. "Of Poe's work, this one is often quoted."

Conan looked up from his examination of the card. "I automatically translated it," he admitted. "Plus, I'm actually not as familiar with him as Arthur Conan Doyle. Poe's work was a little...macabre...for my taste."

"So what does it mean?" Agasa asked.

"No idea," Conan conceded.

"Your puzzle maker isn't as smart as he or she seems though," Ai pointed out. At Conan's confused look, she pointed to the bottom of the note card and continued. "They cited it incorrectly."

"And punctuated it incorrectly too," Conan mused. "Maybe it means something else..."

Ai and Agasa exchanged smiles as Conan fell into detective mode, his eyes focusing on the note and his free hand coming to rest under his chin. Ai shook her head and returned to the stove to make dinner. Agasa reached out and clasped Conan's shoulder, breaking the latter's concentration and making him look at the professor.

"Why don't you just leave it for now?" Agasa suggested. "You're going away for a whole week starting tomorrow. You won't be around to do anything about it anyways."

"I guess so," Conan agreed slowly, still frowning at the note. "Hey Hakase, since this was hand delivered, do you mind keeping an eye out for suspicious people while we're away?"

"Consider it done," Agasa grinned. "Oh, and your snowboard's fully charged too."

"Great! I'll go pack and come back for dinner then."

-o-o-o-o-o-

An hour later, Conan had packed his suitcase for their junior high graduation trip with warm clothes, snowboarding gear, necessities, and various knick-knacks from Agasa. A shoulder bag was laid out with his solar-powered snowboard. He looked at the black card on his night table and picked it up, reading it again.

Something about that note wasn't sitting well with him.

He went downstairs to the Kudo library and quickly browsed through the shelves. Even though he hadn't read Poe with the enthusiasm he had for Doyle, he still remembered flipping through some of the work. His father had both the original and translated versions of Poe's work. Locating the right shelf, he reached up to grab the Japanese version and paused, his fingers just grazing the spine of the book.

The note had been in English. He wondered if there was any significance to that.

His hand moved to the left and he grabbed the English version of _"The Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe"_ off the shelf. He slipped the note into the massive book and went to add the book to his luggage.

"Just in case..." he muttered.

* * *

End Prologue.

Word Count: 1,613

**Note: **I'm curious. Do you readers prefer I update as I write the chapters? (And risk my flightiness with writing...) Or would you rather I write all of it before I start posting so at least you know there's an end? Let me know~ (Or don't...and I'll just do whatever. :D)


	2. Chapter 1

**Nevermore**

By: Hikari-chan (Chitsuki)

Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it still belongs to Gosho Aoyama. Anything that is Edgar Allan Poe's work is referenced in the text and belongs, of course, to Mr. Poe (although I think it's public domain now). I make no profit from this.

**Musings**: Except for the Shounen Tanteidan, (almost) everyone else is referred to by their last names in the narrative. Because it's mostly Conan's POV and that's how he would think of most strangers/people.

-o-o-o-o-o-

_Chapter 1_

-o-o-o-o-o-

_When he woke up, the house was silent, eerily so. Conan frowned and automatically reached for the glasses he didn't need...and almost fell off the bed when his hand missed the night table. He blinked and looked around. The night table wasn't where he remembered it. It was...on the other side of the bed. He pulled the covers back and got out of the bed. The floor was cold, which was odd. He remembered turning on his space heater before going to bed._

_He looked around again and startled. He wasn't in the Kudo mansion. He was at Agasa's. This was the guest bedroom. The only thing was – he didn't remember sleeping over. And was it just him or did his perspective seem different? The dresser looked particularly high and the door seemed larger. He looked down; the floor seemed closer for some reason._

_He paled at a sudden thought. Oh God._

_He looked at himself. Sure enough, as he had suspected, he was in a child's body._

_He was in a dream, no, nightmare. He had had this nightmare before, a vivid recall of the 48 hours leading up to the takedown of the Black Organization 8 years ago. The exception was, in his nightmare, the outcome was always a little different. It was always more eerie, with more blood, more bodies._

_He swallowed the lump in his throat, and as though his dream body was on autopilot, he left the bedroom and headed to the kitchen for a glass of water, just like that night, just like every time he had this dream. The kitchen was dark, but the moonlight shining through the window glinted off the cool metal of the knives strewn around the kitchen floor. The heavy smell of blood filled Conan's nostrils and he could feel bile rising up in the back of his throat._

_But he had to know. He had to know who they had killed this time. Fear gripped him. The knowledge that he wasn't able to save someone he cared about almost froze him to the spot. He had to know though; he had never _not_ wanted to know. He could see the outline of the body. It was someone large, maybe elderly. The moonlight was just enough for him to make out gray hair and a pair of round glasses on the floor._

_He felt a wave of devastation hit him like a physical force. It was..._

-o-o-o-o-o-

"No!" Conan screamed, sitting up in his bed, his heart threatening to pound right out of his chest.

His bedroom was still dark, but the quiet hum of the space heater filled the silence. His whole body was slick with sweat though, the blankets suddenly too hot. His eyes darted around the room, recognizing all the familiar things – the night table was in the right place, his glasses were where he remembered leaving them before he went to bed, and that book of Edgar Allan Poe stories was sitting there with the mysterious card used as a bookmark, next to his clock that read 3:17AM.

There was no one dying, no one he failed to save. Everything was normal. Well, almost.

Hastily, he climbed out of bed and almost ran downstairs, putting on his shoes and grabbing his keys at the same time. Without even bothering to put on a jacket, he ran next door to Agasa's, letting himself in as quietly as possible. He climbed up the stairs and headed straight to Agasa's bedroom. The sound of the professor's snoring could be heard even through the door, but still, Conan slowly opened it and peeked inside.

Agasa-hakase was snoring away loudly, the steady rise and fall of his chest and belly reassuring Conan that he was alive. He breathed a sigh of relief.

"Conan-kun?"

The quiet female voiced startled him, and he turned around to find Ai standing there with a baseball bat in one hand, looking at him in puzzlement. She wore a robe over her pyjamas, and her hair was dishevelled.

"Ai," he whispered. "Sorry, I..."

"Had another nightmare," she finished for him.

He nodded. She reached around him to close the door to the professor's room and took his hand, leading him quietly to her own bedroom.

"You should change," she told him softly, putting away the baseball bat. "Your shirt's soaked in sweat. You're going to get sick."

"Oh, um, I didn't think to bring one."

She rolled her eyes. "You're really not very good at anything but solving mysteries and soccer, are you?" She left him standing in the middle of her room and his natural curiosity compelled him to look around. He hadn't been in here in years, and especially not since they started dating. He was still in the body of a fifteen-year-old boy, and had the situation been a little less depressing, being in his girlfriend's bedroom would probably lead to other stray thoughts.

Ai came back with an old gray t-shirt. "Here," she said, holding it out to him. "One of those pieces of clothing Hakase swears he'll someday fit back into."

Conan took it gratefully and pulled off his sweat-soaked one. "What are his chances?" he asked, more out of a need to say something than actually wanting to know. He changed into the dry shirt, noting it was still big on him. He looked up when he realized Ai hadn't responded.

"Ai?"

"Huh? Oh, um, minimal."

He frowned. "Is everything okay?"

She smiled at him then. "I should be asking you that. You don't usually get the nightmares until three or four days before the anniversary of the Organization's downfall. The nightmares are a couple of days early."

He sat down on her bed and ran a hand through his hair. "I think it's because I was reading Poe before I went to bed," he admitted.

"Ah. And did it help you with that note?" she inquired, understanding right away.

"Not at all. I'll probably just have nightmares for six days now instead of the usual three or four," he answered dryly.

She sighed and sat down next to him, threading her fingers with his. "What are you planning to say to Kojima-kun when you inadvertently wake him up in the middle of the night?"

Conan gave her a bit of a smirk. "I'm actually banking on the fact that Genta is a heavy sleeper," he replied cheekily. "A _really_ heavy sleeper."

"That's why you asked him to room with you when we were told to pick roommates," she mused.

Conan nodded. "I would have picked you. Then I wouldn't have to explain anything, but I don't think Igarashi-sensei would have approved of that."

Ai smiled. "Not to mention your admirers would have been heartbroken."

"Doubt it," he murmured, leaning forward and kissing her softly. "Hey, I have a favour to ask."

She let him lean his forehead against hers and met his eyes, knowing he was still full of anxiety from the nightmare. "What?"

"Can I stay here tonight?" he whispered. "I just... I need to know you're alive. Nothing else, I promise."

Without a word, she stood up and pulled him up with her. Then she rearranged the covers and climbed back into the bed, tugging him in after her. She held him to her chest, letting him wrap his arms around her waist. She could hear his breathing slow as he drifted off with the steady beating of her heart sounding in his ear. In a lot of ways, it was unfair that his nightmares were even worse than hers. Hers had gotten better as time went by, but Conan's seem to persist. She stared at the ceiling, wishing there was something more she could do.

-o-o-o-o-o-

Otaru was a port city about an hour train ride from Chitose Airport in Sapporo. Although neither the train ride nor the flight from Tokyo was very long, Conan was still exhausted by the time their graduating class arrived in the lobby of the Yukihome Ski Resort just on the outskirts of Otaru. He had slept through the night after going to Agasa's the night before, but he had woken up only about fifteen minutes after Ai had gotten up at 6:00AM. He had found her downstairs, making breakfast. Although the strawberry blonde had dismissively told him that she always woke up early, he knew it was because she had barely slept after he had barged into the house in the middle of the night. He could tell by the way she kept yawning despite the two rather large cups of coffee she had consumed.

So he could hardly begrudge her after she fell asleep on him on the plane, and then on the train, despite the soccer team all smiling knowingly at him. He almost felt bad having to wake her up between transfers.

"Class 3-A, gather around this way please!" their homeroom teacher, Igarashi Ichiro-sensei, called out.

Conan followed his classmates to the left side of the large lobby.

"I'm going to be calling out you and your roommate's names," Igarashi-sensei explained. "You'll get your electronic room keys and a copy of our scheduled activities. You can settle in and look around the resort, or go out to the hills if you don't need lessons. Please meet in the first floor dining room by 6:00PM and the teachers will go over the assignments that need to be completed while you're here."

The students chorused their agreements and Igarashi-sensei started calling out names.

"Conan, you want to explore after we put our stuff down?" Genta asked him, excitement clear on his face.

What Conan wanted to do was take a nap, but seeing the hopeful faces of Genta, Ayumi, and Mitsuhiko waiting expectantly for his answer, he found he couldn't refuse.

"Sure," he agreed, giving them a weak smile.

"Edogawa Conan-kun and Kojima Genta-kun!" Igarashi-sensei called.

"Here!" Genta yelled back with enthusiasm.

He jogged up to the teacher and got their keys, followed by a slower Conan. Genta gave Conan his electronic key and the schedule, which Conan opened and skimmed. It looked like the five different classes would be on rotation, alternating between history lessons about Otaru and skiing or snowboarding.

Conan looked up when he heard Ai and Ayumi's names called, followed by Mitsuhiko and his friend Fujisaki Akira from the computer club. Genta quickly shared their room number. They were on the third floor, in the left wing, with Mitsuhiko just three doors down from them. The girls were in the same wing on the fourth floor.

Making their way up the elevator, Conan noted absentmindedly that the resort had a rather European style. With six floors, the resort spread out into a left and right wing on each floor, which curved around to form a U-shaped complex. The central area of each floor contained the resort's indoor amenities while the wings likely housed over 500 rooms in total.

They agreed to meet the girls half an hour later in the main lobby, then he followed Genta down the hall to their room. It took Genta a couple of tries to make the electronic key unlock the door, but Conan merely waited patiently.

"Wow!" Genta exclaimed as he pulled his suitcase in.

The room was fairly large, by Japanese standards, with two twin beds and a spacious corner in which a comfortable-looking armchair and a desk resided. A flatscreen television was mounted on the wall between the two large windows facing the beds. Conan peeked into the bathroom, noting it was pretty standard, with its usual amenities and a full-length mirror.

"Conan, come check out the view!"

He joined Genta at the window and smiled when he looked outside. They were on the side of the resort facing the mountains. He could see the impressive slopes and the various skiers and snowboarders. Suddenly, he didn't feel so tired anymore.

"This is so cool!" Genta continued. He hurried back to his suitcase and tossed it onto the bed closer to the door.

Conan smiled at Genta's enthusiasm. Guess the other bed was his.

"And I'm warm even without a space heater!" Genta exclaimed.

"Oh, that's probably the central heating," Conan replied, walking over to bring his own suitcase to his bed.

"Uh, what?"

"Central heating," Conan repeated. "It's a system used to provide warmth to the whole building from one point, usually a furnace room, to multiple points in the complex."

"So they don't use space heaters?" Genta inquired.

"Space heaters are more of a central and southern Japan thing," Conan explained. "We get warmer weather, so most of the time, it's not necessary to heat up the whole building. Hokkaido tends to get consistently cold weather, so places like ski resorts, especially new ones, will use a central heating system to keep their guests warm."

"Huh," Genta replied, scratching his head. "You always know these weird things... I hope there's a trivia quiz with _unagi-don_ as the prize! We would definitely win!"

Conan stared at Genta for a good five seconds before deciding to ignore the comment and turning to unpack. Who in the world would give out _unagi-don_ as a prize?

-o-o-o-o-o-

Genta and Conan met up with Mitsuhiko, Ayumi, and Ai shortly after 3:00PM to explore the complex. As Conan had suspected, the wings were solely dedicated to rooms and suites, so walking up and down the hallways were uneventful. The central area though, was pretty interesting.

The top floor had a café that led onto an outdoor terrace. The terrace faced the inside of the U-shaped complex. Below them, the garden area had a fountain, which wasn't running since it was the middle of winter, and a small pond which had been turned into an outdoor skating area. There was also, in full resort style, a chapel at the end of the garden. The café was connected to the Sun Room, a beautiful, ornate room which was completely decorated in Victorian style. There was a large fireplace and various armchairs, but the most impressive part of the room was the glass ceiling that allowed large amounts of sunlight through.

The fourth floor had a spa, a pool, and a gym, as well as some children's facilities, like a daycare for parents vacationing at the resort, a craft centre, and a game centre. The third floor was a complete business centre, with a fully equipped computer lab, a reading room, and conference rooms.

"This is really impressive," Mitsuhiko couldn't help commenting as he checked out the computer equipment.

"It's great, isn't it?" came a female voice from two computers down.

The group looked up to see a lady, maybe in her mid-thirties, smiling at them. She had long hair pulled into a braid and was wearing ski gear, her goggles still on her head.

"I'm Uchida Kyoko," she introduced herself.

"We're from the Teitan Junior High school group," Ayumi was, as always, the first to warm up to the stranger. "We're on our graduation trip."

"Ah. Then what are you doing in a computer lab?" Uchida asked. "You guys should be out having fun."

"We're just checking out the facilities," Conan supplied politely. "And you, Uchida-san?"

"My mother and I are taking our annual mother-daughter vacation," Uchida answered with a smile. "I'm just emailing my dad to let him know we're doing well. It's so convenient not to have to bring your own computer."

Just then, an older woman walked in with two travel mugs. "Oh, hello there," she greeted the group.

"Hi, Mother," the younger Uchida smiled, taking one of the mugs. "These are kids from that Junior High group we saw coming in earlier. This is my mother, Ayako."

The group of five exchanged formalities with the older woman, then the younger Uchida stood up. "We should go," she said. "We want to get some skiing in before the sun sets."

"It was nice meeting you!" Ayumi waved at them as the two ladies left. "They seemed like nice people," she commented after the glass doors shut.

"You think everyone's a nice person," Ai pointed out, but there was a smile on her face.

The group continued their trek to the second floor, which was filled with various restaurants. The highlight of the second floor was a small lounge called the Moon Room. Unlike its counterpart on the sixth floor, the Moon Room was decorated with modern pub furniture, although it also housed a fireplace. A massive projector television was set up on one wall.

"That is a really big TV," Genta commented, staring the wall.

"It's for sporting events."

Looking to their left, they saw a man sitting at one of tables. He looked about forty, was wearing a light sports jacket, and had an open laptop and a flat beer in front of him.

"Like if they host sporting competitions?" Mitsuhiko asked.

"Yea, or if people just want to gather to watch a television broadcast of national sports," the man answered. "You guys here for a sports competition?"

Genta and Mitsuhiko shook their heads and introduced themselves to the stranger, who grinned and told them his name was Enomoto Haruki.

"I'm an aspiring reporter," he added. "I haven't made it that big, but I'm still looking for opportunities."

"You're doing a travel article for this resort, right?" Conan asked.

"Yea," Enomoto replied. "Good guess, kid."

"It's not a guess," Conan said, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "You're not wearing ski gear even though it's the middle of the afternoon and the weather's perfect for being on the slopes. So clearly, you're not here for that. You said you're an aspiring reporter, you're here with your own laptop, and the foam is gone from your beer. Obviously, you're working on an article. You asked if we were part of a sporting competition, but if your article was about sports, you would have known the answer. Plus, this resort is new. The only logical conclusion is that the article is a travel article about the resort."

Enomoto looked surprised. "That's pretty sharp, kid," he complimented.

Conan grinned. Of course he was.

Catching sight of the clock on the wall, he turned to his friends. "We only have about half an hour left. Do you guys want to quickly check out the first floor?"

They wished the reporter good luck on his article and hurried down the grand central staircase to the first floor. The lobby was as they remembered it, but there were additional common areas on both sides. On the left, they knew, were the first floor dining room and some kind of dance disco for adults, so they headed right first. The heavy oak doors led them into a huge library with rows and rows of bookshelves that spanned from the floor to the ceiling, the continuous shelves only broken by a cozy fireplace in the middle. There were various armchairs and small tables by the windows for reading, which some guests were taking advantage of.

"Wow…." Mitsuhiko whispered, heading closer to one of the shelves.

"It's almost as impressive as the Kudo library," Ai added softly beside Conan, who nodded.

"It's smaller, but yea," he agreed, "it's still pretty impressive."

Mitsuhiko was trying to see what the taller shelves contained when a woman in her mid-thirties came up to him with a stepstool. "Here," she whispered. "I'm done with this. Do you want it?"

"Oh, um, thanks….uh…."

The woman smiled. "I'm Shima Chiaki," she said.

Mitsuhiko smiled back. "Thanks, Shima-san."

"You guys with the school group?" she asked.

"Yea," Mitsuhiko nodded, then half turned around to gesture to his friends, who were examining something on a lower shelf across the middle aisle. "My friends and I are on our graduation trip."

"That sounds fun," Shima replied. "Well, have a good trip."

And with a wave, the woman hurried back to the stack of books she had left on the floor.

Mitsuhiko used the stepstool to look at some of the books on a higher shelf. There were non-fiction books on the shelf about the area and he even noticed some computer related reference books. He was debating borrowing a couple when he heard Ayumi and Ai calling him.

"We're going to be late," Ai pointed out.

He checked his watch to realize it was close to six o'clock. Stepping off the stool, he hurried after his friends to the dining room.

-o-o-o-o-o-

The evening meal consisted of sukiyaki and rice, which was perfect for the cold weather. Genta, as usual, ate more than his share, but among the warm laughter of friends and classmates, no one seemed to mind. Nearing the end of the meal, all five of the teachers stood up and clapped to gain the students' attention.

Their science teacher, Sugimoto Riku-sensei, was the first to speak. "Everyone, I hope you've enjoyed your afternoon and have gotten a chance to take a look at our planned itinerary for the next few days. We'll be on rotation starting tomorrow morning. Igarashi-sensei's Class 3-A and Chino-sensei's Class 3-B will be on the slopes getting lessons first. Choshi-sensei's Class 3-C will be doing a tour of Otaru and getting a history lesson of the city. My class and Saiki-sensei's Class 3-E will have free time to either complete their assignment or hit the slopes, and we will rotate every day."

The English teacher, Chino Rena, and the Japanese teacher, Choshi Ryuu, both added then that they were available for help if the students needed anything for their assignment, and gave them some rules to follow while they were on their free time.

Igarashi-sensei then brought in three additional people. "Everyone, these will be your instructors during your sports lessons," he stated.

A short woman in her mid-twenties waved at them. Her hair was pulled into a messy bun, but her eyes were sharp. "I'm Li Xiao Xue," she introduced herself. "I'll be your skating instructor for the week."

"I'm Chiba Ren," a man in his late-thirties was next. "I'm the ski instructor."

"And I'm the snowboarding instructor, Yamaguchi Atsushi," the last man, who was in his early-thirties, finished. "We really hope everyone will have a lot of fun."

"And lastly, this is the resort manager, Ryusaki Cato-_bucho_," Igurashi-sensei added, gesturing to a man in his late-fifties who had entered the room.

"Welcome to the Yukihome Ski Resort," Cato smiled at them. "I hope your stay will be enjoyable."

All the students clapped in thanks as the resort staff waved at them and left. Then, their music teacher, Saiki Himeno-sensei, finished up the speeches by announcing a quick social activity for the evening – a friendly competition among the classes.

"You're going to get a list of trivia questions," Saiki-sensei told them. "You can split it up into small groups or do it altogether as a class, but the class with the highest score will get a prize."

Their class representative, Kato Natsumi, was the one who got up to get their copy of the trivia. She was a pretty girl in the chess club, with long dark hair and a cute smile. Conan, Ai, and their friends got up and gathered around with the rest of their classmates.

"When was snowboarding first included in the Olympic games?" Kato read out loud.

There was a low murmur as some of them started to discuss the question. Ai, however, looked at Conan expectantly.

"It's the Nagano Games in 1998," he answered automatically. "The IOC voted to include it in December of 1995, so the first Olympics with snowboarding was 1998."

The murmur became silence around their group. Kato stared at him.

"Uh...that's probably right," Mitsuhiko supplied. Although their classmates knew Conan was smart, they hadn't been exposed to his penchant for reciting random facts at the drop of a hat.

"Okay…." Kato said slowly and wrote the answer down. "The next one is: what was Julius Caesar's famous quote?"

Conan frowned. "There are a few," he pointed out. "If I had to guess, it's probably '_veni, vidi, vici_'."

"I came, I saw, I conquered," Ai translated. "Good guess."

"Is that English?" Kato asked, not sure how to write it.

"No, it's Latin," Conan corrected. He spelt it for her, then added, "The Roman Empire spoke Latin and Greek."

"Um...out of curiosity," Mitsuhiko interrupted suddenly. "How many languages _do_ you speak, Conan-kun?"

"I only speak Japanese and English fluently. I know some phrases in Spanish, Latin, and Chinese, but not enough to carry on a conversation. Oh, and I have a deaf uncle, so I know Japanese sign language and American sign language." Conan stopped when he saw his classmates staring at him in silence. Then he grinned and added, "You should ask Ai what languages she knows."

The whole class turned expectantly to the strawberry blonde.

"Japanese, English, Spanish, Italian, French, German, and I read Latin."

One of the boys on the soccer team interrupted the silence with a loud snort. "You two are a regular United Nations."

"So Edogawa is a genius with a sassy, multilingual girlfriend," another boy added, sounding completely amused. "Do you have superpowers too?"

-o-o-o-o-o-

The social ended with Class 3-A winning the trivia game, for which the award was a shortened assignment during the trip. As their class dispersed for the night, all the boys took turns slapping Conan on the back for a job well done, until Conan was sure he was sporting one giant bruise in the shape of a handprint on his back.

"At least the prize wasn't _unagi-don_," he muttered, massaging his shoulder.

He walked slowly with Ai behind Genta, Ayumi, and Mitsuhiko, feeling no hurry to go back to his room. The three of them managed to catch an elevator with some of their classmates, and Conan waved at them to go ahead.

"Hey," Ai started once the elevator door had closed behind their friends, "are you going to be okay for tonight?"

He looked at her and grimaced. "I _really_ hope Genta is a heavy sleeper."

She turned towards him and reached out to hold his hand. "If you need me, call," she said softly. "I'll keep my phone turned on."

Conan noticed that she looked tired, like she still hadn't recovered from the interrupted sleep the night before. He also knew she would soon be dealing with her own nightmares; hers plague her around the same time as his, but they tend to last for fewer days.

"I want you to sleep while you can," he protested.

"I'm not negotiating with you," she told him. "Call me if it ends up like last night."

"Okay," he lied, knowing already that he wasn't going to interrupt her sleep. He cupped her face and kissed her. She tasted like strawberry and wine – sweet, heady, intoxicating.

The elevator came and they stepped into it to go to their separate rooms. By the time he had said good night to Ai and made it to his room, Genta was already getting ready for bed. Conan felt a sense of dread at the thought of going to sleep and facing the fictional, but all too realistic, death of another person he knew. Swallowing, he spotted the book he had set out on the night table. Considering Poe's work, it was probably a bad idea, but it would shorten his slumbering hours and give him something to do.

He turned the bedside light on low for Genta's benefit and opened the book, settling in for a long night.

-o-o-o-o-o-

End Chapter 1.

Word Count: 4,583  
Cumulative Word Count: 6,196

**Chitsu's Curiosity Corner:** Did anyone notice from the Prologue that Conan and Genta were rooming and wonder about it? :) Just curious. And yes, I did just (in the same fashion as a DC movie) dump a load of suspects, err, I mean random characters on you. :)


	3. Chapter 2

**Nevermore**

By: Hikari-chan (Chitsuki)

Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it still belongs to Gosho Aoyama. Anything that is Edgar Allan Poe's work is (eventually) referenced in the text and belongs, of course, to Mr. Poe. I make no profit from this.

**Musings**: I just want to quickly thank all my reviewers~ Your kind words are really very much appreciated. I know I'm really terrible at responding to reviews, but I assure you I read every single one of them and they encourage me to post what I've written, despite the uphill battles with formatting I always have on this site. So thank you again! I promise this story gets rolling by the end of this chapter. :) Cheers~

-o-o-o-o-o-

_Chapter 2_

-o-o-o-o-o-

The day dawned bright and early, the snow reflecting the sun's rays like diamonds, glittering in a field of white. The slopes had been groomed the night before, the ski lifts well-oiled. However, most of the guests at the resort were still asleep, resting during their precious vacation. The same was only half-true for the occupants of one particular room on the third floor. Conan woke up from a fretful slumber, his eyes drooping and his arms more tired than the night before. The bright sunshine through the window and the sound of Genta's snoring had woken him, not that he was sleeping particularly well.

After reading until his eyes protested, he had reluctantly turned off the lights and gone to bed, only to wake up two hours later with the image of Ran's battered and bruised body imprinted on the inside of his eyelids. Even though he no longer had romantic feelings for Ran, they were still close. She was like a sister to him. Not being able to save her in his dream world, he had woken up in a cold sweat and screaming until his throat hurt.

It was a miracle that Genta had just kept on sleeping, his even breathing telling Conan that his roommate hadn't been disturbed.

After that, Conan hadn't particularly wanted to go back to sleep. He sent a random text message to Ran, hoping she would reply by the morning and he could be reassured, then he had gone into a fretful slumber that was broken every half an hour by uneasiness and anxiety. Although Ai had asked him to call her if he couldn't sleep, he refused to disturb her another night. The nightmares were really his problem; he wanted Ai to get enough rest.

He kept his eyes closed until a loud _thump_ and an "ouch!" made him turn on his side and open one eye.

Genta had somehow wrapped himself into his blanket and rolled out of the bed and onto the floor. He sat up and rubbed his side sleepily, letting out a large yawn.

"Morning, Conan," he muttered.

Conan sighed. "Morning, Genta." He glanced at the clock. They only had half an hour until 9:00AM, when they were supposed to meet their class in the dining room for breakfast, so he got up and changed. It was a good thing that both he and Genta were quick at getting ready.

They made it on time to meet their classmates for breakfast. Conan was the first person to sit down at their table, since he only grabbed the biggest mug of coffee he could find and no food. He let out a huge yawn when Ai sat down next to him. He kissed her automatically on the cheek, like when they ate breakfast at Agasa's before school.

"Morning, Ai," he muttered.

She stared at him, but didn't respond. Noting her silence, he tilted his head, trying to read the expression on her emotionless face. He noted that despite her supposed full night of sleep, she still looked tired. In fact, he would wager that she looked more tired now than yesterday, just like him.

"Are you okay?" he asked her.

She turned away from him and cut into her Western style breakfast, ignoring his question.

"Hey," he said softly. "What's wrong?"

She stared at him again. "How did you sleep?" she finally asked, her voice carefully neutral.

"Oh...um...," he stammered. "Fine. I'm fine."

"Good to know," she answered. "Do you want to know how I slept, Meitantei-san?"

Conan swallowed. "I'm guessing not well. You uh...look tired."

"I see your nightmares haven't dulled your deductive abilities."

He winced. "What, um, what was keeping you up?"

"I worried that one of the people I care most about in the world would need me, so I kept waking up during the night, since he said he would call me if he was too anxious from nightmares to sleep. As it turned out, my sleepless night was for naught since he slept just fine."

"Ai..."

"Either that," Ai continued as though she hadn't heard him, "or he thinks I wouldn't be able to help him, because it surely can't be because he thinks I'm some helpless flower that needs to be protected while he deals with his problems."

"It's not...I just wanted you to sleep better."

"Good job. How did that work out for you?" Her tone was frigid, and Conan knew from experience that it meant she was angry.

"I'm just trying to do what's best for you," he finally protested.

"I see. I suppose being _partners_ doesn't mean the same thing as equality."

"Why are you so mad?" he asked, exasperated and frustrated. "It's just a lousy phone call I didn't make!"

"Why am I mad?" Ai repeated. She stood up suddenly from the table and picked up her breakfast tray. "_You're_ the detective who doesn't need any help. _You_ figure it out."

And with that, she stalked away from the table, threw out her breakfast tray, and left.

Conan stared after her, half confused and half wanting to scream. Ayumi, Genta, and Mitsuhiko chose that moment to sit down and eat their breakfasts. When Ayumi asked him where Ai went, he replied, still somewhat flabbergasted but completely honestly that he had no idea. And when Genta pointed out his lack of food, he merely stated that he wasn't hungry.

That wasn't how he envisioned his morning to go, not even close.

-o-o-o-o-o-

By 10:00AM, the whole school group had finished breakfast and was ready to split into their activities, even Chino-sensei and Choshi-sensei, who had both stumbled in late just 20 minutes before, claiming they had overslept. Conan didn't see Ai at all during breakfast, but he did see her joining Ayumi in the lobby when their class split into three subgroups to go enjoy their choice of winter sports.

Conan, of course, had chosen snowboarding, so he followed Yamaguchi-sensei when their groups were separated. Ai and Ayumi were obviously going skating since their group went out the back doors away from the slopes. The ski group was left waiting in the lobby for the ski instructor.

Mitsuhiko and Genta were with Conan, both eagerly awaiting their snowboarding lesson. Their first stop was the equipment rental centre just on the side of the main resort complex. It was a decently sized building with a staff helping out various early risers. Yamaguchi-sensei lined up their group and helped them pick out boots and snowboards. When he got to Conan though, the fifteen-year-old held up the snowboard that Agasa had made him.

"I have my own," he told the snowboarding instructor.

Yamaguchi looked curiously at the snowboard. "What brand is that? I don't think I've ever seen anything like it before," he said.

Conan laughed nervously. How does one tell his snowboarding teacher that his snowboard is custom-made, with a solar powered battery and a turbo-powered engine built in? Obviously, the answer is – do not tell. "It's a present, so I don't know," he lied easily.

Luckily, Yamaguchi didn't ask too many questions. He merely moved on to the next person, since Conan obviously did not need help. Once they were finally done, Conan followed the group outside. Yamaguchi-sensei chattered on about safety precautions and their first runs down the bunny hill, and Conan automatically tuned the instructor out, letting his mind wander.

So far, he had read through most of Poe's poetry, and he was no closer to figuring out the mysterious note. Unlike some of Poe's other works, '_A Dream Within a Dream_' was not in Poe's style of macabre stories, nor does it follow Poe's recurring themes. In addition, he couldn't figure out why someone would punctuate it incorrectly, so it stood to conclude that the punctuation meant something else. But what? And why use Poe's work to send the message? Was it even a message? The professor hadn't emailed him regarding anything unusual at home, so there were no clues there.

He also had the additional problem of why Ai was angry with him. He felt bad that she was worried enough about him to be unable to sleep soundly, of course, but he didn't really know why it was so important to her that he made that phone call if he had nightmares. After all, Ai wasn't a typical girly girl who needed him to call and reassure her of anything. She was one of the few people who could read him better than he could read them, always able to anticipate his next move if she knew the situation. That was what made her such a reliable partner during his cases. Was she angry because he hadn't done as she had expected this time? He couldn't envision Ai being that angry just because her pride was hurt though, not that type of slow burn anyway. She was more likely to mock him until he felt equally stupid.

"Conan-kun," Mitsuhiko's voice brought him back to the present. "Yamaguchi-sensei is going to take us down the first hill now."

Conan looked up at the bunny hill. It was an easy run with a short gentle slope and quite a few beginners tumbling down it. He grimaced. It was going to take him longer to get up that hill than down it. Plus, he needed something a little more challenging to help him take his mind off his problems. Sports always helped him clear his mind.

"You go ahead, Mitsuhiko," he told the other boy. "I'm actually going to talk to Yamaguchi-sensei."

Mitsuhiko nodded and started to move towards the rest of their group. Most of the students were jumping awkwardly around to move forward on the flat ground. Conan got his instructor's attention and pulled him away from the group, explaining that he had been snowboarding since he was in the first-grade and wondering if he could skip the lessons.

"Ah yes," Yamaguchi replied. "I was surprised you didn't ask earlier. I assumed you knew the basics if you had your own equipment. The resort has a testing centre in the equipment rental building. They'll send someone to go with you and make sure you're good for a more experienced level pass."

Conan thanked him and headed back to the equipment rental building. He could probably pass the expert test without much problem. His plan was to spend all day on the slopes. The rush of racing down the expert hills would probably do him some good, and maybe his mind would be clearer by the evening.

He let out a large yawn as he jogged up to the testing centre. Actually, maybe he would take a nap break sometime during the day, assuming his nightmares didn't choose to also plague him during the day.

-o-o-o-o-o-

As he soared into the air on the side of the half pipe, Conan tried to clear his mind and enjoy the experience. The flip he performed in midair changed his perspective of the slopes, and in the distance, he thought he saw something like a hut. He frowned a little bit and tried to look for it again as he went up the other side of the half pipe. Sure enough, there was something that looked like a house, or a hut, peeking just out of a group of trees by the side of the slope with moguls.

Now his curiosity was peaked. Why would the owners of the resort build a hut on the slope?

Finishing his run down the half pipe, he made his way over to the ski lift again, this time picking the moguls slope to snowboard down. He stopped his run when he reached the set of trees he had seen. He undid the fastenings of his boots to the snowboard and walked his way up the trees, looking for the hut. He found it fairly quickly. It was an old wooden structure, not exactly run down, but certainly not looked after either.

As he was standing there, frowning at it, he heard footsteps crunch through the snow behind him.

He whipped around, and found himself face to face with the reporter from the day before and the manager. They both looked surprised to him there.

Enomoto, the reporter, reacted first. "You're that boy from yesterday – the one who came into the Moon Room with his friends."

"Yea," Conan replied. "Are you visiting this hut too, Enomoto-san?"

"Oh yes, I overheard some people talking about seeing a shack up here and had Ryusaki-_bucho_ bring me up," Enomoto explained. "I thought maybe there was a story here."

The manager shook his head. "Like I told you, it's really not much of a story," he responded. "This old hut is leftover from the old ski resort, and since it wasn't in our way, the owner just left it here when he had the new resort built."

"Old resort?" Conan echoed.

"This whole piece of land used to belong to a resort called the _Hope Hills_," Ryusaki told them. "Their business went downhill after a murder happened right on the resort, and they eventually closed down. Our owners tore down that whole resort when they bought the land. This hut is just a piece that didn't get removed."

Conan's eyes narrowed. "Murder? What happened?"

Ryusaki shrugged. "I don't really know much about it since it's a pretty old case, like before I moved to Otaru 7 years ago. All I know are rumours."

"What were they?" Conan persisted.

"Um...I think it was something about a husband killing a wife?" Ryusaki furrowed his brow, trying to remember. "Although I think I also heard that the case went cold and the victim's ghost haunted the halls of the old resort, so maybe it wasn't a domestic dispute case."

Both Enomoto and Conan were thoughtfully silent after. For his part, Conan was trying to recall something about a murder in Otaru more than 7 years ago. If it was more than 7 years ago, he was probably still in the process of tracking the Organization, or might even have still been Kudo Shinichi. The time frame wasn't specific enough for him to pinpoint a particular case he might just have read in passing.

"So um...do you know what this hut was used for?" Enomoto's question brought Conan back to the present.

Ryusaki trekked his way closer to the hut and tried the door. It was unlocked. Enomoto and Conan followed him inside. It was dark, cast in shadows by the overgrown trees outside, but the sunlight through the windows still allowed them to see. There were some old ski racks and a small table in the corner.

"Looks like an equipment shack," Enomoto commented. "Maybe for emergencies."

"Like I said," Ryusaki replied with a shrug. "There's no story here."

"Well, that's too bad," Enomoto said. "It would have been interesting."

The manager closed the door to the shack after Enomoto and Conan followed him back outside. The trio walked through the snow to the snowmobile Ryusaki had parked next to the trees. Overhead, the snow started to come down, drifting around them like dancers.

Conan declined the offer for a ride down the slope since he had his own snowboard, and watched as the manager guided the snowmobile away. He hopped back onto the snowboard and made his way down the remainder of the moguls.

He checked his watch. He still had a little more than an hour to check out the expert trails, although if the snow kept coming down, it might be less. Maybe he'll see what else was interesting on these slopes while he still had the chance.

-o-o-o-o-o-

The adrenaline from snowboarding all day had faded by the time Conan was done with his early evening shower, but between taking out his frustration on the slopes and the comfort of a hot shower, he was feeling better now than he had been all day. He still didn't really understand why Ai was angry with him though. No matter how he thought about it, he didn't get why looking out for her well-being would be _wrong_. He was trying to take care of her, like he thought a good boyfriend (heck, even a good friend) should. Why would she be mad about something like that?

He was in the process of pulling his light jacket over his sweatshirt when Genta walked into their room, looking like he had a fight with a snowman...and lost. Genta was practically dripping snow onto the floor by the door, and when he opened his jacket, clumps of ice fell onto the ground.

"What happened?" Conan couldn't help but ask.

Genta looked miserable. "Snowboarding is hard," was all he said as he struggled to take off his boots.

Conan's lips twitched into a smile. Ah, so it was nothing life-threatening. "Who told you it was easy?"

"You _always_ made it look easy," Genta complained.

"I practiced. A lot."

"Maybe I'll try skiing tomorrow," Genta grumbled. "When the storm isn't that bad."

"Isn't it a little early to give up?"

"I don't know. Hey, where were you today? I didn't see you all day even though Yamaguchi-sensei took us through all of the beginner slopes."

Conan had the decency to look a bit sheepish at this. "Oh, I uh...I took the tests to get an expert pass. I went through the hard slopes."

Genta had managed to get his jacket and snowpants off, flopping down onto his bed on his stomach. "Figures," he muttered. "You're always off doing your own thing."

Conan winced internally at the accusation. While it was probably true, he still felt bad about having it pointed out. "It wasn't like that," he protested, his voice sounding tired. "I...I just needed to get away for a bit. I um... I had a...disagreement...with Ai."

Now Genta looked up. "We had lunch with Ayumi and Haibara," he told Conan. "She didn't say you had a fight."

"Of course she wouldn't."

"What did you do?"

"Why do you assume _I_ did something?"

"Because when my parents fight, my mom always says it's my dad who did something wrong," Genta shrugged awkwardly in his position.

"I didn't," Conan insisted. "I just...didn't tell her something because I didn't want her to worry. That's not wrong."

"So she's not worried now?"

Conan frowned. "Um, well she sort of is, since she found out."

"Then what's the point of not telling her?" Genta sounded genuinely confused.

Conan opened his mouth, but no answer came out. What _was_ the point of not waking her up when she couldn't sleep anyways because she was already worried about him?

"Maybe she just wants to help," Genta continued, not noticing that he had already stumped Conan.

Conan shook his head. "It's not something she can help with." It wasn't. The nightmares were his own psychological manifestations; Ai couldn't help him with something like that. At least he didn't think so.

"How do you know?" Genta asked. "You always say we couldn't help. You know, back in our Shounen Tanteidan days. But sometimes we do help."

"Yes," Conan admitted reluctantly. "But this isn't the same."

"It's not?"

Conan frowned. Was it the same? Or at least similar? Was there something someone could do to help with his nightmares? Was there more to why Ai was so mad about a lousy phone call he didn't make? He felt a headache beginning at the base of his skull.

He glared at Genta. "Thanks a lot. Now, I'm confused too."

-o-o-o-o-o-

Conan and Genta met Mitsuhiko and his friend Akira at the elevator on their way down to dinner. He listened absentmindedly to their recall of their snowboarding misadventures, all the while pondering the puzzle Genta had inadvertently given him. Of all the puzzles in the world, women were the worst. He had no logical clues and was no closer to figuring out the real reason Ai was mad than he had been before.

Mitsuhiko and Akira welcomed Conan and Genta to join the computer club at dinner. Conan looked around the dining room and spotted Ai and Ayumi already eating with a bunch of girls, so he agreed to join Mitsuhiko. Apparently, Ai wasn't ready to forgive him yet.

When he sat down, some of Mitsuhiko's friends were discussing their ski lessons, or apparently, lack thereof.

"It's a good thing Igarashi-sensei can actually teach us how to ski, or we would have had to pick something else."

"Yea, and I was really looking forward to skiing. I can't believe that ski instructor skipped out like that."

"The ski instructor didn't show up?" Conan asked, furrowing his brow.

"Weren't you paying attention, Conan-kun?" Mitsuhiko asked. "Our whole class has been talking about it all day. Chiba-sensei didn't meet up with the students who signed up to learn skiing this morning, so Igarashi-sensei had to take over."

"Didn't Ryusaki-_bucho_ look for him when someone told him our ski instructor didn't show?" Conan pointed out.

"Rumour has it that there was a family emergency," Fujisaki answered.

Conan frowned. There was an uneasy feeling in his stomach. He wondered if Igarashi-sensei could tell him more about what the manager had said regarding the ski instructor's absence. He looked over to the teachers' table, and was surprised to find Class 3-C's Choshi-sensei gesturing wildly about. The rest of the teachers seem agitated as well. Was it something to do with the ski instructor missing the session? After all, he was booked to do all of the ski lessons for the classes, and if there was an emergency that he had left for, they would have to find a replacement. Not all the teachers were good at sports like Igarashi-sensei, after all.

His observation was interrupted by Natsubori Takuto of Class 3-C. Natsubori was one of the defenders on the soccer team and had dated Ai briefly before Conan.

"Hey," Natsubori addressed them. "You guys wouldn't have seen Ishihara-san or Hino-san, would you?"

"Who?" was Genta's response.

"Ishihara Nanako-san and Hino Aya-san," Natsubori clarified. "They're both from Class 3-C and in the literature club."

"No," Conan answered slowly. "Why?"

Natsubori scratched the back of his neck, looking worried. "We lost track of them when we split up for the history scavenger hunt in downtown Otaru," he explained, "but they didn't show up at the meeting point."

"They're missing?" Conan questioned carefully, keeping his voice steady.

"Um, maybe? We waited for a bit, but the snowstorm was really starting to come down so we headed back. Choshi-sensei said they might have finished the scavenger hunt early and come back on their own," Natsubori informed him. "But I haven't seen them around and some of the other girls were saying they weren't answering their phones..."

Conan shot up from the table and hurried out of the dining room. From what he had seen, there was no bloody way Choshi-sensei actually knew where the girls were. Otherwise, he wouldn't be so agitated. Add that to the fact that the ski instructor hadn't been heard from since the morning either and Conan was all kinds of anxious. He ran into the lobby and found the manager's office near the front desk, and he hurriedly knocked on the door.

"I need to be let into Chiba Ren's room," he announced without preamble when the manager opened the door.

To say Ryusaki was surprised was an understatement. He looked utterly taken aback, opening and closing his mouth a few times before he shook himself and acknowledged what was going on. "You're with the junior high school group?" he asked.

"Yes," Conan gritted out. "We have two missing girls and your ski instructor missed class with no warning. I need to check his room."

Ryusaki frowned. "Now see here, young man. I do not make it a habit of allowing strangers into my staff's private property," he said, obviously not amused.

"Not even for two fifteen year old girls who are suspiciously missing at the same time as your staff?" Conan narrowed his eyes.

The manager looked uncertain now. Slowly, he stood up. "Let me talk to your teacher."

Conan followed the manager impatiently back into the dining room. Five minutes later, Choshi-sensei had confirmed the fact that two girls were missing and Ryusaki-_bucho_ had agreed to open the ski instructor's suite for them on the condition that if nothing was found, they would leave everything alone. Choshi-sensei and Igurashi-sensei accompanied Conan and the manager out to the far end of the right wing. Conan gritted his teeth impatiently while the manager slid the key card into the lock. Truth be told, he actually really hoped that his paranoia was from the excess amount of Poe he had been reading the past couple of days. When he felt like the manager was opening the door in slow motion though, he reached over and twisted the handle instead of waiting, barging into the room.

There were no missing girls anywhere to be seen, but in the middle of the room, the body of Chiba Ren was lying perfectly still on the queen-sized bed, facing a full-length mirror.

"Chiba-sensei!" the manager screamed.

"Don't come in!" Conan yelled back reflexively.

Ryusaki paused at the authoritative tone in the fifteen year old's voice. So did Choshi-sensei and Igarashi-sensei.

Conan left the door open and walked in. "Nobody come in," he repeated, his voice calmer now, but still commanding.

He walked up to the bed and peered at the body. It was perfectly still, with its eyes closed, looking for all the world like it was just sleeping. He felt for a pulse out of habit, but as he expected, there was none. The body was cool under his touch and no obvious weapons were in his immediate sight. Conan pulled out the handkerchief he always kept in his pockets, reaching around to pick up the arm. It was stiff under his touch.

"Conan-kun?"

He looked up to find that Ai was now standing in front of the manager and their two teachers in the doorway, with Ayumi, Genta, and Mitsuhiko wedged in between. They must have followed him when they saw him rushing in and out of the dining room

"Call the police, Ai," he told her, his voice composed but hard. "Dead body onsite at Yukihome Ski Resort, found at 6:30PM on the first floor, right wing, room 109."

Instead of replying though, Ai raised her hand and silently pointed to something behind him. Conan turned around.

Sitting on the night table, propped up against the bedside lamp, was a black card with ornate white writing.

-o-o-o-o-o-

End Chapter 2.

Word Count: 4,435  
Cumulative Word Count: 10,569

**Chitsu's Curiosity Corner:** And we're rolling…. :)


	4. Chapter 3

**Nevermore**

By: Hikari-chan (Chitsuki)

Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it still belongs to Gosho Aoyama. Anything that is Edgar Allan Poe's work is (eventually) referenced in the text and belongs, of course, to Mr. Poe. I make no profit from this.

**Musings: **Thanks for all your lovely reviews~ I do read them; I just put my free time towards working on new chapters instead. I hope you feel that's a fair trade-off. :) All cultural & dead body facts are as accurate as I can research them. I'm sure the person checking my browsing history think I'm some serial killer. :/ On a more light-hearted note, the library scene is dedicated to all my fellow CoAi shippers. More about that at the end. Enjoy. Cheers~

-o-o-o-o-o-

_Chapter 3_

-o-o-o-o-o-

Conan stared at the note on the night table with wide eyes. No way. He turned back to look at Ai. The expression on her face was probably a mirror of his own – disbelief and confusion. Ai managed to regain her composure before Conan. She turned to her three friends and instructed, "Ayumi-chan, make that call to the police. Kojima-kun and Tsuburaya-kun, make sure no one else comes in here."

She walked into the room, pulling her own handkerchief from the pocket of her jacket so she could examine the body. Hanging around with a corpse-magnet like Conan enforced some habits in her.

Falling into the once familiar pattern, Ayumi quickly got her cell phone. It seemed like there wasn't any reception, so she started walking down the hall to see if she could get some signal. Genta and Mitsuhiko turned their back to the room and stood firmly in the doorway, ensuring anyone getting in would have to get past them.

The three adults were still looking at the five teens who had barged in with some confusion. Igarashi, being their homeroom teacher, was the first to find his voice. "Just wait a second," he started. "I think the police or an adult would be better for this."

"Yes," the manager agreed quickly. "You should at least let us in to check on Chiba-sensei."

"Chiba-sensei is dead," Conan informed him, tone curt but professional. He came up behind Genta and Mitsuhiko. "No pulse, cool to the touch, and his body is stiff from _rigor mortis_. He has been dead for at least 6 hours."

"What?" the manager choked out.

"Actually," Conan corrected himself thoughtfully. "He has probably been dead for closer to at least 8 or 9 hours, since he missed the ski lessons that were scheduled for our class this morning. Why _did_ he miss the ski classes this morning?"

"I um...I think it was a family emergency," Ryusaki-_bucho_ replied.

Conan frowned. "Did he call in about it?"

"No, it was an email from his email account."

"When did you get the email?"

"Um...a little before Igarashi-sensei came asking for Chiba-sensei," Ryusaki recalled. "So maybe about 10:15?"

Conan was about to ask more questions when Ayumi came running back. "Conan-kun!" she yelled. "I can't get a cell phone reception anywhere!"

Conan reached into his pocket and flipped open his own phone. There was no reception. Outside, the wind howled and even through the walls of the resort, they could hear that the storm had gotten even worse. The reception towers were probably having problems because of the storm.

Ai walked up behind Conan then to join the group. She gave Conan a small nod and stated, "If this isn't the scene of the crime, then he was moved quickly after. Considering Chiba-sensei was an athlete and probably fairly heavy, that's unlikely. _Livor mortis_ is happening around the side pressed to the bed, so no one moved him post mortem. Judging by the discoloration of the skin and what Ryusaki-_bucho_ just said, I would say time of death is between 8:00 and 10:00 this morning. Preliminary, of course."

"I thought the same thing," Conan agreed. "And since there's no visible weapon or signs of wounds, my guess on cause of death is poison or overdose."

"So what's our next move, Boss?" Ai asked, crossing her arms.

"Boss?" Conan echoed, looking at her in puzzlement.

She shrugged. "We have no cell phone reception to call the police, so I'm assuming you will be leading this investigation until we get in touch with them."

"Wait," Ryusaki interrupted, looking between Conan and Ai in stupor. "Investigation? By some fifteen-year-olds?"

"Who's more familiar with police investigation procedures?" Ai asked. "You? Or this one?" She tipped her head in Conan's direction.

"Definitely Conan-kun," Ayumi, Genta, and Mitsuhiko chorused.

The manager stared at them, speechless, and Ai took the chance to prompt Conan again. "Well?"

"Right. Ryusaki-_busho_, does the resort have a landline?" Conan asked, taking over again.

"Um, yes. In the front office," Ryusaki replied.

"Ayumi-chan, Mitsuhiko, you guys go with Igarashi-sensei and Ryusaki-_bucho_ to the front office," Conan instructed. "Make the phone call from the landline, Ayumi-chan. That shouldn't be affected by the cell phone towers. Tell them to also be on the lookout for two fifteen year old girls in Teitan Junior High school jackets. Mitsuhiko, get a copy of that email from Chiba-sensei's account. Try not to let anyone know we found a dead body; it would cause panic."

"Okay!" Ayumi and Mitsuhiko led the two speechless adult away.

"Choshi-sensei, you need to go back to the dining room," Conan continued. "Get our classes' attendance lists together with Sugimoto-sensei and Saiki-sensei, then make sure everyone's accounted for. We have two girls missing and we need to make sure no one else has disappeared."

Choshi-sensei nodded and hurried down the hall. He looked unsure how to feel about taking instructions from his student, but it seemed to be the best course of action for now.

"What about me?" Genta asked.

"Ai and I are going to close the door and look at the scene more carefully," Conan told him. "I need you to walk up and down the hall and make sure no one suspicious comes along. Culprits tend to return to the crime scene. Let me know with the detective badge if you see anyone."

At Genta's nod, Conan closed the door and turned to Ai. They stared at each other for a moment before walking over to the night table in unison. Conan picked up the black note card and read it out loud.

_"You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that gave utterance to a threat.  
CX"_

They both silently processed the contents, written in English.

"What are the chances it's not the same person?" Ai asked quietly.

"Minimal," Conan admitted. "It's the same type of card in the same colour, with the same style of font used for the message. If this is also Edgar Allan Poe, the chances it's not the same person would be none."

"You don't know if it's Poe?"

"I reviewed all his poetry between last night and the night before," Conan told her, "but this is obviously prose. So I know it's not from Poe's poetry work, but it could be from his short stories."

"If it is Poe, your culprit has cited it incorrectly again," Ai pointed out, frowning.

"I think it's more important that it's cited _differently_," Conan responded. "If we suppose the writer made a mistake, why not both CL? Or both CX? It stands to reason that if he or she is quoting without knowing the actual author, they would make the same mistake in both notes rather than different ones."

"So we have to go through Poe's work to see if this _is_ a quotation," Ai concluded. "And of course, you brought a copy, probably of his complete works."

Conan smiled a little sheepishly. "In English, too," he confessed.

"So which one of us is spending the evening in Mr. Poe's company?" Ai asked.

Before Conan could answer, his detective badge beeped, and he reached into his pants pocket to pull it out, clicking the button on the back to open the line.

"Conan-kun," Ayumi's voice came over the badge. "We got in touch with the police, but they said they can't make it up here anytime soon. The storm's too bad." Conan was silent until Ayumi prompted him. "What do we do now?"

Ai grabbed Conan's hand which was holding the badge and pulled it over to her. "Ayumi-chan, go find an infirmary," she said. "I need a pair of gloves, syringes, and vials – the kind used for drawing blood for tests. There should be an infirmary onsite in case of injuries."

"Can one of you grab some Ziploc bags too?" Conan added.

"Huh? Um, okay," Ayumi replied, sounding confused, but obviously believing Conan and Ai knew what they were doing. "We'll come back soon then."

Conan put the detective badge back in his pocket and turned to Ai. "Guess we're going to be doing more than just figuring out a note," he commented.

Ai sighed, taking out her cell phone. The phone did not have a high quality camera by any means, but it was going to have to do. A dead body did not wait for professionals to show up before it continued to the next stage of death. "I guess I've got the body and you'll be covering the rest of the scene, Boss?"

"Why are you calling me that?"

Ai raised an eyebrow at his obvious discomfort.

"You're not my subordinate," Conan clarified. "You're my partner."

"Ah yes, this is a case," Ai nodded. "In that case, of course I am."

Conan frowned, mystified at her comment, but he shook his head and started looking around the room for clues. There will be time later to figure out Ai's behavior. For now, they had a dead body on their hands.

-o-o-o-o-o-

Conan was on his hands and knees looking for clues around the floor when the knock came on the door. He got up and opened it, finding Ayumi and Mitsuhiko with their arms full of supplies he and Ai had asked for. Genta was with them, and Igarashi-sensei and the manager were both there, looking more apprehensive now than before.

Conan took the Ziploc bags and handed Ai the rest.

"Here's the copy of the email, Conan-kun," Mitsuhiko said, handing two folded pieces of paper. "I also had Ryusaki-_bucho_ pull the history of the access key cards made for this room."

Conan was surprised as he skimmed through the second piece of paper. "Right," he murmured to himself. "Because the keycards are electronically coded, so there would be a computer record of them. Good thinking, Mitsuhiko."

Mitsuhiko grinned proudly.

"What do you need next?" Ayumi asked.

Conan slipped the two pieces of paper into one of the Ziploc bags, then looked at his friends. "I need you guys to go back and pretend nothing's happened for now," he instructed.

"What?" Genta sounded indignant.

"I don't want to cause panic before the police get here," Conan explained. "And I don't want to tip off the culprit that we've already begun investigating. So I need you guys not to say anything about this. Ryusaki-_bucho_, we need to get the body to the infirmary, but otherwise, can you keep this under wraps for as long as possible?"

The manager nodded. "Chiba-sensei was booked for your school the entire week. No one else will ask for him except some staff," he replied. "I can tell them about the family emergency email for now."

"That will do. I also need room access to this room sealed off, obviously." Conan noted. Ryusaki nodded his understanding. "Igarashi-sensei, maybe you can coordinate with other teachers to take over the ski lessons? It would stop the class from asking questions."

Igarashi agreed.

"Conan-kun, are you sure we can't help anymore?" Ayumi asked again.

"I'll let you know once I figure out the next step," Conan appeased her. "For now, Ai and I are just putting the evidence together for the police when they arrive. Those two girls from 3-C are still missing, aren't they? You guys need to go keep things under control there."

Nodding, the three of them left with their teacher and the manager, and Conan let out his breath as he closed the door and turned back to Ai, who was in the process of drawing blood from the victim into the vials. The notebook and pen he had lent her earlier were on the night table, and he knew that she had filled it with her notes on the body. He walked over and placed the black card into one of bags.

"What are your thoughts?" he asked Ai, turning to her.

"Nothing spectacular," she replied. "Without blood tests or toxicology, it's impossible to confirm what drugs are in his system. No signs of struggle though – nothing under the nails, no signs of self-defense, no smells. So my preliminary guess is overdose on sleeping pills."

Conan frowned and turned towards the full-length mirror. "It's definitely homicide though," he mused. "Not counting the presence of that note, it's bad feng shui in Japanese culture to have a mirror facing the bed, so no one would deliberately sleep like that. Besides,why would someone committing suicide want to die looking at themselves? "

"They're narcissistic?" Ai suggested.

Conan frowned. "As a ski instructor? Narcissists tend to be self-focused in interpersonal exchanges, which would make him a poor teacher."

"So you think someone moved the mirror here," Ai stated. "But why?"

Conan examined the position of the mirror thoughtfully, and paced a little bit as he turned the facts over in his mind. There wasn't really anything he had found so far at the scene, and without a forensics team, they couldn't do much more. The best they could do for now was preserve the scene. Plus, since the body hadn't been found until 8 to 10 hours after the crime, the culprit would have had plenty of time to clean up the scene, had that been the intent. Even though the room was electronically locked, the culprit could easily have gotten in claiming they would like a morning appointment with the instructor. But why would someone want to kill him?

As of right then, Conan knew he had two things he had to do to unravel the mystery: first, see if anyone saw anything that morning, and second, figure out that note.

-o-o-o-o-o-

Midnight found Conan poring over his volume of Edgar Allan Poe stories in an armchair in the corner of the resort library. It had been late by the time he and Ai had finished up bagging the evidence and documenting anything they thought was relevant in the ski instructor's room. Interviews, they decided, had to wait until the next day. Lying in bed, listening to Genta snore though, Conan found his mind actively at work, trying to figure out a good way to tackle the task of talking to hundreds of people on his own and narrowing his suspects list, not to mention looking for two missing classmates. He didn't know if the murder and disappearances were related, so for now, he would have to somehow investigate both at the same time. Finally, he had decided lying in bed was a poor use of his time since he couldn't sleep anyways, thrown on a loose button-down shirt and a pair of pants, and headed to the library with his book to try and figure out the other half of the puzzle.

The sound of footsteps made him look up. Ai was walking towards him with a tray of food, wearing a light sweatshirt over a dark skirt. The smell of food made him realize for the first time that day that his stomach was growling. She set the warm bowl of noodles and the cup of tea on the table in front of him and handed him the chopsticks.

"Ayumi-chan told me you didn't eat breakfast," she said softly. "Then you didn't join us for lunch and we found Chiba-sensei's body before dinner was fully served."

Conan dug in gratefully. "I thought you were mad at me," he muttered in-between bites.

"I am," Ai shrugged. "But one person's dead and two people are missing. I can postpone my grudge until Mr. Holmes isn't needed."

"Whatever it is I've done, I _am_ sorry," he replied.

"Whatever it is you've done?" she echoed. "You still haven't figured it out."

Conan sighed. "After talking to Genta, I don't think it's just because of a phone call, but that's pretty much as far as I got."

"You're so stumped you went to _Kojima-kun_ for relationship advice?" Ai sounded incredulous.

"Um, not exactly, but he asked me where I was all day and it stemmed from there."

Ai rolled her eyes. "I don't know if it's endearing that you're so clueless or absolutely infuriating."

"If that's open for discussion, I'm voting for the former."

"Of course you would." Ai perched herself on the arm of his chair and reached up to take his glasses off. She placed the glasses on the table next to his finished bowl of noodles, then gently traced the circles that were starting to form under his eyes with cool fingers. "You should sleep."

Conan grinned. "Pot, kettle."

"Not quite. _I_ trust _you_."

"What do you mean? I trust you, too."

"Not really," Ai shrugged. "You certainly trust me to call in reinforcements for you, but you don't trust me with your worries and problems. You've categorized in your mind things you won't tell me because you don't trust me to handle whatever it is. You still believe that you can protect me from everything."

"I _will_ protect you," Conan insisted.

"And I believe you," Ai replied. "More importantly though, I believe _in_ you. I trust you to protect me and save me not because it was a promise you made, but because it's you. I believe you can share my burden with me even if you can't solve my problems for me." She paused, looking deep into his eyes. "Do you believe in me?"

Conan stared back, and he thought he finally understood why she was angry. It had nothing to do with the phone call itself and everything to do with his tendency to want to solve every problem by himself, even those that would be easier if he involved her. "I'm trying," he finally answered. "I've been a one-man team for a really long time."

"Yes, speaking of that, how is the one-man team thinking of interviewing about 200 students and all those other guests?" Ai asked. "Supposing the police doesn't make it up here soon since I can still hear the storm."

"The one-man team has no idea," Conan admitted.

"Well, how about you extend the number of team members then?" Ai suggested. Conan looked questioningly at her, so she continued. "Ayumi-chan, Tsuburaya-kun, and Kojima-kun were pretty eager to help. If you have them interview our classmates, they'll take care of a large chunk of the interviews three times faster than if you did them all yourself. And unless you think our fifteen-year-old classmates have anything to do with one murder and two disappearances, it should be pretty low risk."

"And Ayumi-chan knows almost everyone in the grade. She would be good at identifying any missing people," Conan mused thoughtfully.

"We could get a list of all guests staying at the resort from Ryusaki-_busho_," Ai added. "Then, we could narrow down the guests to those without an alibi for the time of the murder."

"Yes, that's a good approach," Conan agreed. "I don't want Ayumi, Genta, and Mitsuhiko to interview the other guests or our teachers though."

"Our teachers?" Ai frowned. "You don't actually think they had anything to do with this, do you?"

"I was thinking about it earlier," Conan admitted. "Igarashi-sensei is most likely innocent. He was seen in the dining room with some students who were early for breakfast from about 8:30. Then he spent the whole day teaching our class and Class 3-B skiing. He didn't have opportunity. But Choshi-sensei and Chino-sensei were both late for breakfast, plus Choshi-sensei would have had the chance to abduct those two girls while their class was split up during the scavenger hunt."

"What would be the motive though?" Ai asked, obviously confused.

"No clue, but I don't have _any_ clear motive," Conan pointed out. "Besides, I got the first card in Beika. How would the culprit know I'll be here?"

"Ryusaki-_bucho_ has clear access to the whole resort, so that's opportunity too. And you would be on the guest list since the school registered everyone's name and addresses," Ai added.

"Yes," Conan nodded. "So I think you or I should interview the teachers and staff at the resort. We'll scrutinize what they say a little better."

"And the other guests?" Ai prompted.

Conan frowned. That was still a lot of guests to interview.

"We can split up," Ai suggested after a moment of thought. "I can pair up with Kojima-kun and Ayumi-chan can pair up with Tsuburaya-kun; we'd get through them twice as fast. You, I'm sure, will want to investigate on your own."

That wasn't a bad idea, Conan thought to himself. And because both of the students missing were girls, he would feel a lot of better if Ai and Ayumi had someone accompanying them. He smiled at Ai. "Looks like I wasn't the only one staying up and pondering the interview problem."

"You did call me the pot," Ai said dryly.

"One problem down, one to go," Conan responded, gesturing to the Edgar Allan Poe book on the table.

Ai furrowed her brow. "Maybe you should take a break from it. You've been looking at it for so long, maybe you're overlooking something obvious," she pointed out.

Conan conceded to himself that it was a good point. In addition, Poe's short stories were doing nothing to put his mind into a slumber-friendly state.

He felt a mischievous smile form on his face as he glanced up at Ai. Then, without any warning, he reached up and pulled on her waist, making her lose her balance from her perch on the armchair. Ai fell right into his lap and Conan silenced her undignified yelp by sealing his lips over hers. He felt her stiffen at the unexpected kiss, then she seemed to process what was happening and relaxed in his arms. She slipped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer, deepening the kiss. His hands slid slowly and sensually up her ribs, making Ai squirm in his grasp. Conan kissed his way down her jaw, to her throat, to her neck, nipping gently against her skin. Her fingers raked through his hair, and she let out a soft whimper when he sucked lightly on her pulse.

"My, aren't you a little forward all of a sudden?" she gasped out.

Conan chuckled into her neck. "I can't sleep because I have nightmares, my lovely girlfriend delegated away most of my work, and I was just forbidden to think about the Poe connection to the case," he murmured as he continued to make his way down to her collarbone. "And," he added cheekily, "I'm a fifteen year old boy. I'm not sure what else I could be thinking about."

"Technically, you're twenty-five," Ai retorted, fingers grasping the lapels of his shirt.

"With the hormones of a fifteen-year-old," Conan replied dryly. "I wonder whose fault that is."

She raised her eyebrows at this, her eyes almost glittering in the faint glow cast by the lone lamp on the table beside them. "Well, let's see if I can make up for that." She sat up and twisted around in the armchair, straddling him and pressing her body against his. Cupping his face, she kissed him hard. He opened his mouth readily, feeling the heat flood into him as she flicked her tongue against his. The gentle scrape of her teeth against his lips made him feel liquid and heavy, and his hands fell on her hips as he pulled her closer. Her cool fingers traced his jaw and down his neck, reaching to unbutton his shirt as her lips followed the path her fingers were taking. He gasped loudly when he felt her hands running down the bare skin of his chest to his stomach, tugging his shirt from his pants while her lips sucked gently on a sensitive spot behind his earlobe.

She was soft and warm, and he wanted to touch her, grasp onto her, bury himself into her warmth...and all of a sudden, the weight was lifted from his lap and cool air hit him.

"Huh?" He looked up in a daze, his eyes dark and hazy, to find Ai standing and straightening her skirt. "W-What was that?" His voice sounded hoarse and husky even to his own ears.

"Hmm? Oh, you know, something to help with the nightmares," Ai replied dismissively. She gave him a knowing smile.

Conan gaped at her, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water.

"You should go back to your room and sleep soon," Ai continued, picking up the food tray from the table. "You have a long day ahead of you, after all. _Sweet dreams_, Meitantei-san."

Conan was still speechless as he watched her turn around and walk out of the library. He sank deeper into the armchair, trying to make his thoughts coherent again. What the hell had just happened? He reached blindly for his book, but found nothing on the desk. He frowned stupidly until some blood came back to his brain and kicked him mentally. Ai must have taken his book with her when she left. He rubbed his face tiredly and glanced at his watch.

It wasn't even 1:00AM yet...

Haibara Ai was really something else, he thought with a wry smile. In the span of about forty-five minutes, his girlfriend had fed him, forgiven him, solved the interview problem he had been turning over in his mind, made him take a break from the case, and with some searing kisses and cool fingers, nearly made him lose his mind and take her in an _armchair_ in some corner of a fairly public library. More importantly, she was probably going to be right about the source of his dreams that night.

Conan grabbed his glasses and got up from the armchair with some effort. Before the much-needed sleep though, he needed a shower. A _really_ cold shower.

-o-o-o-o-o-

As Ai had theorized, the snowstorm continued overnight and didn't let up until just before dawn the next morning. Even then, there were still some flurries. When Conan looked outside in the morning, he knew that the emergency services wouldn't get there that day. The snow was too thick for it to be safe to travel from the city up to the resort. Plus, the snowstorm probably meant that there were other areas around the city that required help.

Ayumi and Ai knocked on Conan and Genta's room around 8:30AM. Genta was still brushing his teeth, but Conan looked well rested and ready to take on the day.

"Good morning, Conan-kun!" Ayumi chirped. "Good morning, Genta-kun!"

Genta's response from the direction of the bathroom was a jumbled mix of something that was probably "good morning", while Conan asked if she could go get Mitsuhiko because he had something to discuss with them. Once Ayumi headed down the hall to knock on Mitsuhiko's room, Ai held out Conan's missing Edgar Allan Poe book, like he had suspected, and he took it from her.

"How did you sleep?" she asked politely, but there was a smirk on her face.

"I slept through the night," he grudgingly admitted.

"That's good to hear," she replied. "And the dreams?"

He glared at her. "It's not that I don't appreciate your um...help, but next time, do you think you could come up with something that doesn't require me to take two cold showers in the span of seven hours?"

"Duly noted." Her voice was suitably demure and repentant, but seeing the devilish smile on her face, Conan didn't believe the sincerity in her agreement for a second.

Ayumi chose that moment to re-enter the room with Mitsuhiko, and Genta emerged from the bathroom, changed for the day as well. Conan gestured for them to gather around and explained the plan that he and Ai had come up with the night before.

"It'll probably be boring and you'll have to take a lot of notes," he admitted, "but it's a place to start narrowing down our suspects. What do you guys think? Willing to help?"

Ayumi, Genta, and Mitsuhiko exchanged grins with each other.

Conan glanced at Ai, who smiled back at him. They could see where this was going.

"Let's do it!" Ayumi exclaimed.

Genta and Mitsuhiko pumped their fists into the air with her. "Temporary comeback of the Shounen Tanteidan!"

-o-o-o-o-o-

End Chapter 3.

Word Count: 4,693  
Cumulative Word Count: 15,262

**Chitsu's Curiosity Corner**: So, re: the library scene. I'm actually in Conan's boat on that. I finished writing it and went "what the hell just happened?" Then I decided Ai would totally do something like that to him and left it. I think my Conan-muse wants a more um...satisfying end; he's giving me trouble in the chapter I'm working on. :P Oh well, hope you enjoyed it anyways~


	5. Chapter 4

**Nevermore**

By: Hikari-chan (Chitsuki)

Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it still belongs to Gosho Aoyama. Anything that is Edgar Allan Poe's work is (eventually) referenced in the text and belongs, of course, to Mr. Poe (although I think it's public domain now). I make no profit from this.

**Musings:** I feel like a broken record, but thanks for all your kind reviews~ :) I'm glad to hear your thoughts, really! We're moving into the investigation. If anyone's a detail-fiend and wants to beat Conan to solving the case, you might want to take notes. I tried my best to get everything right, but I feel there's probably an inevitable plot hole somewhere. Ah well~

-o-o-o-o-o-

_Chapter 4_

-o-o-o-o-o-

Breakfast found Ayumi, Genta, and Mitsuhiko huddled around the back corner of the dining room with Conan practically dictating what questions had to be asked. Mitsuhiko had his laptop open while Ayumi and Genta were scribbling away in their notebooks.

"You guys need to separate the classes first. Maybe one of you can do Class 3-A and 3-B, one of you can do Class 3-C, and the last can do Class 3-D and 3-E," Conan instructed. "We'll need specific times, where they were, what they were doing, who they were with, and if there's anyone they saw – teachers or staff or guests they recognize."

"Like confirming alibis?" Ayumi asked.

"Yes. If there are classmates who spent the whole day together, we can group them up," Conan continued.

"It should be pretty easy," Mitsuhiko commented. "I think a lot of us spent the whole day snowboarding or skiing or skating together."

"Mitsuhiko, if you're putting this all down electronically, I saw Ryusaki-_bucho_ and Enomoto-san near the moguls around 4:00PM yesterday," Conan added.

Mitsuhiko nodded as he clicked away on his keyboard. "Genta-kun and I were with a bunch of the snowboarders."

"Write down the list of their names," Conan told him. "You'll have to talk to anyone who left your group for longer than maybe half an hour. They could have come across something."

"Ai-chan and I can vouch for a bunch of people who came skating too," Ayumi added. "Li-sensei was with us from 10:00 in the morning until about 2:00 in the afternoon. Then, Chino-sensei joined us around 4:00 until dinner time."

"Yamaguchi-sensei was with us almost the whole day too," Genta supplied. "He went on break and gave us free time to practice after 3:00."

"Which one of you is interviewing Class 3-C?" Conan asked.

The three teens looked at each other. "I can," Ayumi finally volunteered.

"Okay. For that class, you need to ask additional questions," Conan said. "We need more details on the times, as exact as they can remember. When did the scavenger hunt start? When were they supposed to meet up? Where was the meeting point? When did they last see Ishihara-san and Hino-san, and were they together?"

Ayumi nodded as she scribbled down the details in her notebook.

"I can take Class 3-D and 3-E," Mitsuhiko looked up from his laptop. "Since they were on free time, it's probably more work to catalogue where everyone was. It'll be easier to do with a computer."

"And Kojima-kun is bad with details," Ai added as she walked up to their table with a tray full of breakfast foods.

They all smiled as Genta scratched his head sheepishly. Ai passed around the food and took a seat before they all dug in. There were going to need the energy for what was going to be a long day of work ahead of them.

-o-o-o-o-o-

The re-formed Shounen Tanteidan split up after breakfast was over. Since the weather was still bad, guests were advised to spend their day indoors using the facilities, which was going to make tracking down everyone they had to interview much easier. Teitan Junior High School's teachers followed this advice as well, telling their students they could use this as free time before the students scattered into groups.

Mitsuhiko had gotten a list of the guests from a reluctant Ryusaki-_bucho_ and carved out the group of students at the resort, using the business centre's printer to give both Ayumi and Genta a list. The remaining guests were on the list he gave to Conan and Ai. Then, the trio was off to ask questions.

The first thing Conan did was inquire with the teachers regarding the two missing girls. There was no news from the police so far about finding anything and neither girl had shown up. Choshi-sensei was getting visibly agitated.

"They could have taken shelter in downtown Otaru," Chino-sensei suggested. "Maybe they got stranded when the snowstorm got too bad and the police just hadn't seen them yet."

Choshi-sensei had no response other than nodding his agreement, but Conan privately thought that was rather optimistic. Or suspicious. If they took the position that Ishihara and Hino were stranded in the city, then no one would look for them on the resort. If the murder and disappearances were related, that would inadvertently give the culprit more time to plan his next move. Plus, the girls weren't answering their cell phones. Conan didn't know when the cell phone reception went down, but it was probably safe to assume the girls' friends would start calling soon after Ishihara and Hino missed showing up at the meeting point.

"Say, Choshi-sensei, would you mind telling me what your class did yesterday?" Conan asked.

"Huh? Oh, well, we left at around 10:00 to take the shuttle bus down to Otaru. It's just under half an hour to get there," Choshi-sensei explained. "Then we had a lesson, we had lunch, and the students were given a scavenger hunt to find certain landmarks around town."

Conan took his notebook out and started taking down the notes. "Was the whole class there during the lesson?"

Choshi-sensei looked surprised. "Of course."

"What time did it end?"

"Um, around 1:00? We were served lunch by 1:15 or so."

"When did the scavenger hunt start? And when were you supposed to meet up?"

"It started at 2:00, and they had three hours before they had to meet at the shuttle bus stop," Choshi-sensei answered. "We waited for about half an hour for the girls to show up, but they didn't and the snow was coming down hard by then."

Conan tapped his chin with the pen, looking at the rough timeline he had drawn in the notebook. "So the girls would have disappeared between 2:00 and 5:00 yesterday afternoon," he concluded. "This is bad."

"It-It is?" Choshi-sensei whispered.

"If they've been abducted and we still haven't heard anything? Yes. The chances of people surviving a kidnapping are the highest in the first 24 hours," Conan stated. "After that, the chances diminish significantly."

Now all five teachers were staring at him.

"It's cute that you're trying to play detective, Edogawa-kun," Saiki-sensei finally said, obviously trying to break the awkward silence.

Conan stared at her, eyes sharp behind the glasses. "I'm not playing," he bit out. "Igarashi-sensei, can you tell me as soon as you hear something back from the emergency services? If we don't hear back from them, we can narrow down the search area."

"We can?" Igarashi looked surprised.

"Of course," Conan replied with a smirk. "It was snowing too hard for any abductors to get far out of town yesterday. If Ishihara-san and Hino-san aren't found in Otaru, the only place they could be, is right here on this resort."

-o-o-o-o-o-

By mid-afternoon, Conan had made a round of the whole complex for anything unusual and hadn't seen any place where two teenage girls could be conveniently hidden. Anxiety was gnawing at the corner of his mind. It had been a whole 24 hours since the girls' disappearance. While the lack of cell phone reception could be a huge contributing factor to lack of contact from the kidnappers, it still wasn't the comfort he wanted. He thought about barging into every guest room but the bulk of the guests were actually their classmates, and he doubted the remaining guests would agree to let him search their rooms with no proof. He _had_ managed to rope Ryusaki-_bucho_ into showing him all the empty rooms, much to the manager's obvious disgruntlement, but that had turned up nothing.

He made his way back to his room, thinking he would tackle the puzzle of the mysterious notes. He found, however, that it was already occupied. Ai was sitting at the desk in the corner of his room, flipping through his Edgar Allan Poe book.

"Hey," he greeted her, shutting the door behind him.

She looked up at him. "I finished talking to the staff," she told him. "Cross-referencing it with the staff registry, almost everyone alibied out for the time of the murder."

"But?" he prompted.

"No one saw Li-sensei or Yamaguchi-sensei until their 10 o'clock lessons with our class," she told him. "If the murder was committed closer to 8:00, that's plenty of time to cover up any clues, send an email, and show up like nothing happened."

"And they would have had no problem getting into the room either since the instructors were all friends, and that list Mitsuhiko pulled from the resort computer didn't show anyone unusual having an access keycard," Conan continued her train of thought. "Any problems Chiba-sensei was having with the other staff?"

"Not that anyone knows of," Ai answered. "By all accounts, he was friendly and laidback, seldom had issues with people. Yamaguchi-sensei mentioned that he was almost _too_ laidback, like he wouldn't even get mad at people who booked lessons and didn't show up for them."

"Hmm..."

"Did you find out anything about Ishihara-san and Hino-san's disappearances?" Ai asked him.

Conan sighed and sat down heavily on his bed. He told her what he had found out about the activities of Class 3-C the day before, then added, "Except for Choshi-sensei, our teachers claimed to be on the resort all-day yesterday, but Chino-sensei said she spent most of her day alone until she went skating. Igarashi-sensei, Sugimoto-sensei, and Saiki-sensei all interacted with some students throughout the day, so we just need to wait for that to be confirmed. I also realized that Ryusaki-_bucho_ doesn't have an alibi for either the time of the murder or the time of the disappearances. He spent both slots alone in his office."

Ai pursed her lips. "He has access to every room on this resort so it would be easy for him to get in and out."

"Speaking of that, how did you get in here?" Conan asked, curious.

Ai held up a keycard. "Kojima-kun gave me his room key when I saw him earlier. I've been picking up where you left off with the reading."

"Uplifting reading, isn't it?" Conan commented sarcastically.

"Actually, I found the quote."

"What?" Conan shot up from the bed and hurried over to the desk, where she had the book open.

"Right here," Ai pointed to the page, "from '_The Cask of Amontillado_'."

Conan grabbed the book and quickly skimmed the story. Ai waited quietly and patiently while he finished reading it. When he finally looked up at her, his expression was one between horror and confusion.

"It's a revenge story," he stated.

"Yes. The narrator murders his victim, Fortunato, by sealing him into an underground...cave, I guess you can call it, because he was insulted and vowed revenge," Ai summarized.

Conan frowned. "You said Chiba-sensei was very laidback though," he pointed out. "Didn't have enemies or grudges held against him."

Ai crossed her arms and tilted her head thoughtfully. "Yamaguchi-sensei also said that he was _too_ laidback. Maybe that caused friction between the manager and him. Could he be losing money on lessons he didn't follow up on?"

"The resort is inclusive, so I don't think that's it." Conan looked back down at the story. "And we still haven't explained the error in citation."

"Maybe it's the victim or culprit's romanized initials," Ai suggested.

"Chiba Ren doesn't romanize into CX though," Conan replied. "And there's no X in Japanese."

A loud knock on the door interrupted their musings, followed by Genta's voice yelling, "Haibara!"

Conan went to open the door, and their three friends stumbled into the room, looking worn out, but kind of proud. "How did it go?" Conan asked once they had all collapse between the beds and the floor.

"We've covered the whole grade," Mitsuhiko announced proudly.

As suspected, almost everyone in Class 3-A and 3-B had spent the day on the slopes or in the skating rink, and Genta didn't have anyone who spent more than half an hour alone anywhere. Mitsuhiko had all of Class 3-D and 3-E accounted for as well, with some students spending time on the slopes and others using the indoor facilities. Between Genta and Mitsuhiko's interviews with the 4 classes, Igarashi-sensei, Sugimoto-sensei, and Saiki-sensei's movements through the day were tracked and mostly covered.

Ayumi's account of Class 3-C's day was in-line with what Choshi-sensei had told Conan earlier. She had additional information from some of Ishihara and Hino's friends though, who were with them up until about 2:30. After that, Ishihara and Hino had separated from them, saying they had something to do, and left. By 4:30, they had tried texting and subsequently calling Ishihara and Hino to see what they had been up to, but there was no response, and by 6:00, when they made it back to the resort, cell phone reception had been lost by the storm.

"So Ishihara-san and Hino-san's time of disappearance is probably between 2:30 and 4:30 yesterday," Ai summarized.

"That's enough time for the same culprit to murder Chiba-sensei, go into town, abduct them, and bring them back to the resort before anyone noticed they were missing," Conan thought aloud. "So we still don't know if they're on the resort, and we still don't know if this is one case or two."

"We _have_ narrowed down the list though," Ai pointed out. "From those we've already interviewed, the only people that didn't alibi out are Ryusaki-_bucho_, Li-sensei, Yamaguchi-sensei, Chino-sensei, and Choshi-sensei."

"Wait, you guys think our _teachers_ have something to do with this?" Mitsuhiko asked, obviously shocked.

"No, I just want to leave the possibility open until we have proof they're not involved," Conan assured him. "We still have all the other guests to interview, so I'm sure our pool of suspect isn't going to be 40% our junior high school teachers."

A moment of silence followed where each of them pondered what that meant. It was interrupted by the loud rumbling of Genta's stomach. Everyone turned to look at him. Then, Ayumi giggled and the tension was broken, everyone breaking into smiles and laughter.

"I guess that means it's dinner time," Mitsuhiko grinned, snapping his laptop shut and leaving it on Genta's bed.

Ai stood up and walked over to hand Genta's keycard back to him.

"Say, Haibara," Genta started, "what were you and Conan doing earlier in here, alone?" He was looking between them with a suspicious expression on his face.

"Genta-kun!" Ayumi blushed, but she looked at Ai and Conan curiously too.

Conan rolled his eyes and held up the massive, 800-page book he was still holding in his hands. "Discussing the English language and death," he answered, his voice drier than the desert.

-o-o-o-o-o-

The dining hall was buzzing when the Shounen Tanteidan showed up. A girl with short brown hair came running up to them, a worried expression on her face.

"Ayumi-chan!" she exclaimed.

"Sakura-chan," Ayumi greeted her. "Are you okay?"

The girl – Sakura – shook her head and asked frantically, "Have you seen Kotori-chan and Megumi-chan?"

"No, not since briefly at breakfast," Ayumi answered slowly.

"I haven't seen them since about 3:00 in the afternoon," Sakura replied, fidgeting with her fingers now. "We agreed to meet for dinner but when I knocked a little earlier, they weren't there, and they're not here either."

Ayumi turned to Conan, biting her lip. "Conan-kun," she whispered.

"Slow down," Conan instructed. "Mitsuhiko, go back and get your laptop."

Mitsuhiko nodded and with Genta, they hurried back the way they came.

"Now, from the beginning, what happened?"

Sakura took a breath and started. "Um, a bunch of us from 3-D were going over the history homework in the library. Around 3:00, Kotori-chan wanted to take a shower, so Megumi-chan went with her, and they said they'll meet us for dinner. We knocked on their door about half an hour ago, but no answer, so we thought maybe they meant they'll meet us in the dining room. They weren't here either. We thought that was weird until someone from 3-C said that they were missing 2 girls too."

Mitsuhiko and Genta came back then. The group quickly found an empty table and Mitsuhiko reviewed his notes from Class 3-D. "Fujimoto Kotori-san and Hamasaki Megumi-san," Mitsuhiko muttered. "Ah, here it is. I talked to them shortly after lunch in the library. They spent the day yesterday checking out the library and skating with their friends, didn't see anything suspicious."

"What do you mean?" Sakura asked.

"We're looking into the other missing girls too," Conan explained. "Who else knows about Fujimoto-san and Hamasaki-san being missing for the last 3 hours?"

"Um, just a few of us from 3-D and the girls who told us about their missing friends in 3-C," Sakura answered.

"It'll spread around by the end of the night," Ai pointed out. "The rumour mill won't sit quietly."

"It might be a good thing," Conan mused. "Sakura-san, tell the girls to be more careful. Maybe travel in larger groups. We're going to look into it; Fujimoto-san and Hamasaki-san have to be around the resort somewhere."

Sakura nodded and scurried off. It was a moment before Ayumi began in a shaky voice, "What do we do now, Conan-kun?"

"We need to do a search of the resort again," Conan decided. "There's now 4 girls missing and they're all on the resort somewhere."

"You're sure now that the first two girls aren't in Otaru?" Ai asked.

"Two kidnapping cases with almost the same M.O.? The chances are pretty high it's the same culprit," Conan explained. "In any case, I hope the culprit has some complex plan other than random kidnapping."

"Why would you _want_ there to be more to the kidnappings?" Genta blurted out.

"Because that would mean our culprit has a reason to keep our missing classmates alive, some kind of reason we haven't figured out yet," Conan clarified.

"The most the average human can survive without water is about 3 days," Ai added. "If the culprit has no reason to keep them alive, then even if they're not already dead, they might have been left somewhere without food or water."

"Which would mean we only have just over 30 hours to find them before they die from dehydration," Conan finished solemnly.

-o-o-o-o-o-

_The room he was standing in was dark. The moonlight shone silver through some high windows, casting shadows. Conan let his eyes adjust to the darkness. Soon, he could make out the furniture, and he sighed, recognizing the room as one he hadn't seen in 8 years, but that he would never forget._

_It was the underground FBI office that they had gathered in just before the takedown of the Organization. The first and last time he was physically here, he had just found out that Ran had been kidnapped. Resigning himself to the inevitability of the dream, he opened the door and made his way upstairs, expecting to see the faces of FBI agents, both those who survived the raid, and those who didn't. Standing around though, were his junior high school classmates._

_Four girls ran out from the crowd of students, each with pleading looks on their face._

_"Edogawa-kun," the girl he remembered was Hino-san addressed him. "Save us."_

_"I..." he stuttered. "Where are you? Where are you being kept?"_

_He knew it didn't make sense to ask that. He was standing there in the body of a seven-year-old, asking apparitions of his fifteen-year-old self's classmates a question they probably didn't even know the answer to._

_The second girl approached him, holding out her hand as though she was reaching for him. "Help! Help!"_

_"I will!" he said. "Tell me where!"_

_The sound of a gunshot came from nowhere and Conan's white shirt was suddenly splattered by red, sticky liquid. The apparition of Hino-san dropped abruptly to the floor, eyes wide and staring at him. Blood pooled onto the floor at his feet, and he took a step back, gasping for breath._

_"No," he whispered. "How do I save you?!"_

_He knew he was screaming now. He bent down to feel for a pulse, and that was when he found a shadow looming over him, blocking out the silver light of the moon. Conan held his breath as he turned slowly around, coming face to face with the cold, calculating eyes of a man with long blonde hair. The man grinned maniacally at him, but the gun he held in his hand wasn't pointed at Conan; it was pointed to the girls behind him._

_"One down, three to go," he hissed._

_"No, no, no!"_

-o-o-o-o-o-

"Please, no!"

Conan sat up in bed, eyes wide and sweat running down his body, his breath coming out in gasps. Through the window, he could see that the snow had started up again sometime in the night, and the storm was continuing to keep anyone from coming up to the resort, or leaving it. Conan put a heavy hand on his forehead, closing his eyes and trying to get his breathing under control.

They had done a thorough search of the resort complex the night before, pairing up with the teachers. Conan deliberately grouped himself and Ai with Chino-sensei, Choshi-sensei, and Igarashi-sensei in order to observe the former two teachers' behavior, but nothing they did indicated that they knew more than they should. If one of them was truly the culprit, they were damn good actors.

He looked over at Genta's bed to find his roommate facing away from him, but lying perfectly still. Genta must be exhausted, Conan thought to himself. They had started the search as soon as they realized Fujimoto and Hamasaki had been missing, more or less skipping dinner, and the search had continued long into the night. They had even gone outside to make sure they weren't being kept in the chapel or the equipment building. It had been the wee hours of the morning by the time they had decided they all needed to rest before the search effort was continued.

Conan glanced at the clock. Despite his nightmare, it was already late morning. He got up and headed to the bathroom, getting ready for the day.

-o-o-o-o-o-

The Shounen Tanteidan gathered in the dining room in time for lunch. Their classmates were split between those who were solemnly silent at the news that there were four missing girls from their group, and filled with nervous energy.

Conan automatically kissed Ai on the cheek when she sat down next to him, but he looked far away, pushing his food back and forth on his plate. He looked up when Ayumi called his name and asked if he was okay.

"Yea," he responded dully, forcing a reassuring smile. He chanced a glance at Ai, who was looking at him worriedly. "I just had a bad dream," he admitted to his friends.

"So you didn't sleep well," Ai stated. "Makes you wish you could sleep without dreaming, doesn't it?"

Conan frowned. _Sleep without dreaming... Sleep without dreaming... Dream within a dream... Sleeping pills..._

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the two black cards he had taken to carrying around and reread the first one. That's right; there was no scene of crime found with the first card. He had two cards, and only one crime scene.

"Did you figure something out?" Ai asked, recognizing the look on his face.

He looked up at her. "What if these are _prospective_?" he asked. "We've been assuming that the second note goes with Chiba-sensei's body because it was found _with_ Chiba-sensei's body. But what if the first note goes with the first body?"

Ai shifted closer and reread the first card too. "Dreams," she whispered.

"Yes. You can only dream if you're sleeping, and Chiba-sensei was found facing a mirror, almost like there were two of him," Conan continued. "A sleeping person facing a sleeping person; a dream within a dream."

"And the mistakes in punctuation and citation?" Ai asked.

Conan frowned. "Not sure about the punctuation, but the citation could be, as you said before, a romanized name."

"C for Chiba," Ai muttered. "And L?"

"There's no L in Japanese," Conan pointed out. "Romanized Japanese would replace all L's with R's."

Ai took the second card from where it had been tucked beneath the first one, looking at it. "If you're right, what does this one mean?"

"'_The Cask of Amontillado_'," Conan mused. "Someone being killed for revenge, maybe locked somewhere and left to die."

"I don't think there's anywhere we've seen in the complex where no one would check with 4 missing girls," Ai said skeptically. "Someone would more likely die if they were left outside."

Conan stared at her. _Somewhere someone could be locked up outside and left to die..._ Conan shot up from the table and sprinted out of the dining room. The elevator was too busy with all the guests coming in for lunch, so he took the stairs, almost breaking the door when he impatiently opened it to his room. He threw on his winter jacket and boots and grabbed his snowboard from where it was resting next to his luggage and raced back down the stairs, almost crashing into Igarashi-sensei, who was standing in the lobby with Ayumi, Genta, Mitsuhiko, and about a dozen more students who must have seen him tore out of the dining room like a bat out of hell and wondered what happened.

He ignored them, quickly making his way around the small crowd and out the doors on the side facing the slopes, tossing the snowboard onto the thick snow and jumping on to click his boots into place. The snow was whipping madly around him, the view of the slopes in front of him a blur.

"Edogawa-kun!" Igarashi yelled above the sound of the wind. Conan looked behind him. He could make out Igarashi-sensei holding the door open despite the cold. "Where are you going? The ski lifts aren't working and you're on flat ground!"

Conan ignored this and stepped onto the engine button instead. The snowboard whirled to life, air rushing in as the engine warmed up. Suddenly, Conan felt more weight on the board. He glanced behind him to see that Ai, in her own winter jacket and gloves, was standing with him on the snowboard. He realized that he didn't see her in the lobby just now; she must have figured out what he was doing and gone to get her own winter gear.

"What are you doing?" he raised his voice to be heard above the loud whirls of the snowboard's engine and the wind of the storm.

"You don't think I'm letting you go out there in this storm on your own, are you?" she retorted.

"It would be safer if you stay here," he argued.

Her gloved hands gripped the edge of his jacket and her eyes bored into his. "Don't you believe in me?" she asked, reminding him of the conversation they had two nights ago.

His heart raced and he knew it wasn't just the adrenaline flowing through his veins. Conan knew he trusted Ai in a lot of ways, but he didn't know if he could believe in her the same way she had claimed to believe in him. He had always been the savior rather than the one being rescued, however this really wasn't the time to debate that issue with Ai.

The slight change in the humming sound of the snowboard's engine alerted him that it was just seconds away from being ready to go, so Conan merely faced forward again and shouted over his shoulder at her. "Then you might want to hold on a little tighter!"

She had just enough time to wrap her arms around his waist and hold on for her life before the snowboard shot off into the storm, the wind whipping in their faces. Conan guided the snowboard expertly along the bottom of the slopes until he reached the moguls. Turning the board, they raced up the slopes towards the patch of trees he could see in the distance. As they got closer, he could make out the shape of the hut he had found earlier. He turned the snowboard a full 90 degrees to stop it.

The snow around the path leading up to the shack was at a lower level than the rest of the immediate area. There was snow around the bottom of the doorframe but most of it was uncovered.

"Someone's been here fairly recently," Ai pointed out.

"Just like I thought," Conan agreed solemnly.

"You don't think the girls are being kept here, do you?" she asked him.

He took a deep breath. "We'll find out in a second." He reached for the door and pushed it open, bracing himself.

-o-o-o-o-o-

End Chapter 4.

Word Count: 4,784  
Cumulative Word Count: 20,046

**Chitsu's Curiosity Corner:** I swear I didn't do that on purpose. It's just the next scene didn't fit into the chapter word count. As always, would love to hear what you think! Cheers~


	6. Chapter 5

**Nevermore**

By: Hikari-chan (Chitsuki)

Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it belongs to Gosho Aoyama. Anything that is Edgar Allan Poe's work is (eventually) referenced in the text and belongs, obviously, to Mr. Poe. I (unfortunately) make more profit from this.

**Musings:** Some quick housekeeping items: 1) I will be away on vacation for about 3 weeks, so obviously, I can't update the fic. I will upload a new chapter once I get back. 2) I'm far enough in the writing process to tell you guys that it will be 9 chapters long plus an epilogue, so rest assure you will actually get a resolution. :) (Three cheers for attention span actually lasting!) And 3) I meant to respond to some of your reviews, but got caught up in pre-vacation prep stuff. I read them! I swear! Thank you for them, as always~ They feed me. :)

-o-o-o-o-o-

_Chapter 5_

-o-o-o-o-o-

Conan wasn't sure whether the scene that greeted him was fortunate or unfortunate. On the one hand, there weren't 4 girls inside the shack. However, there _was_ a woman, tied down to the equipment rack. She was motionless, and Conan raced quickly across the wooden floor of the shack to her, feeling for a pulse. Outside, the wind howled.

Ai flipped on the flashlight in her watch, and in the glow of the light, they could see that the woman was deathly pale. Her skin was frozen under Conan's touch. She only wore a sweater and a pair of jeans. The expression on her face was one of resignation.

"No pulse, no breathing, no response," Conan whispered. "She's dead."

Ai brought the light closer to him. "Who is she?" she asked.

Conan frowned, trying to place the face of the woman. He felt like he had seen her around the resort before, but her name was escaping him right then. "I don't know," he admitted.

Ai gave him the flashlight watch and stepped around him to examine the body. "No sign of blunt force trauma," she muttered. "Preliminary guess is severe hypothermia causing death. Again, without toxicology, it's impossible to determine if she came here while drugged. We can't pinpoint a time of death either since the extreme ambient conditions will cause _rigor mortis _to be significantly delayed."

Conan watched as she took some pictures of the scene for documentation with her phone, then joined her when she started looking closer for bruises and other marks. He heard Ai draw a sharp intake of breath and looked up.

She had retrieved a black note card from the pocket of the victim.

They were both silent for a moment. Ai finally took a deep breath and read it aloud for him.

_"I like him especially for one master stroke of cant, by which he has attained his reputation for ingenuity. I mean the way he has 'de nier ce qui est, et d'expliquer de qui n'est pas'.  
LX"_

Conan frowned. "That last part," he began.

"Is French," Ai confirmed. "It means 'to deny what is, and explain that which is not'."

Conan furrowed his brow, obviously trying to remember something. "I'm pretty sure that quote is from '_The Murders in the Rue Morgue_'. It was the prototype for later detective stories, including Sherlock Holmes. I can't remember if the original was in French though."

"We'll go back and check," Ai said, pocketing the note. "I found bruises on her legs and some on her arms, but if she was a skier or snowboarder, that's hardly out of the ordinary."

"We have to get her body back to the infirmary," Conan stated as he reached for the detective badge and opened the line to contact Ayumi, Genta, and Mitsuhiko. He quickly relayed what they had found and approximately where the shack was. "Ryusaki-_bucho_ knows where it is. I remember seeing him here the first time I saw it."

There was a pause on the line, then Mitsuhiko's voice came through. "Ryusaki-_bucho_ is coming up with Igarashi-sensei in a snowmobile, but the conditions are bad, so it might be a little while."

"It'll have to do," Conan replied.

"Tsuburaya-kun, do you have your computer with you?" Ai asked through her own badge.

"Um, yea. Do you need something?"

"Find a quiet place," Ai instructed. "I'm going to dictate the state of the body to you since its condition will change before emergency services arrive. Write it down."

"I can do that," Mitsuhiko agreed. "Is Conan-kun and Genta-kun's room okay?"

"That's fine."

"Genta, Ayumi," Conan continued. "Start interviewing the guests we haven't covered. See if we can get an ID on the woman and where those guests were for the other death. And don't split up."

Genta and Ayumi agreed over the line before Mitsuhiko's voice came back, telling them he was in Genta and Conan's room, ready to take down Ai's notes. Conan paced back and forth in the small area of the shack while Ai's voice noted the state of the body and all the things they had found through the detective badge.

He wondered when the woman was killed and if she would have lived had he figured out the note's meaning faster. He wondered where and when the murderer planned on striking next, because the presence of a third note no doubt meant that this wasn't over. He wondered the reason the first note was dropped off at his house; surely it would be easier to slip the note into his room on the resort.

He stopped pacing when he heard that Ai had stopped. She had put away her detective badge, but she was shivering slightly, pulling her jacket closer around her. He deduced that she probably didn't have time to dress properly for the amount of time they had ended up spending in the snow, since she had hurried to catch him earlier.

"Ai," he called her.

She turned and looked at him. Her cheeks were rosy from the cold, her breath forming soft puffs of air. She was rubbing her arms to generate some warmth. Conan opened his arms, and without a word, she crossed the room and stepped into them, wrapping her arms around his waist and tucking her head into the crook in his neck. She was cold, but he held her tighter, dropping a soft kiss on her temple.

"This wasn't your fault," she whispered.

He smiled wryly. "I know that logically," he admitted. "I just feel like I'm playing a game, and it's my fault I haven't caught up to them yet."

"There is a silver lining though."

"Hmm? What's that?"

"Those girls are probably alive," Ai pointed out. "Assuming it's the same culprit, they clearly want them for something. Otherwise, we would have found their bodies."

Conan tightened his hold on her and nodded into her hair. That's right. The chances of both a kidnapper and a murderer being snowed in at the same place at the same time were pretty low. This was turning out to be more like an elaborate scheme with a lot of pieces they haven't yet been able to put together.

The chase wasn't over yet.

-o-o-o-o-o-

The onsite doctor and nurse were ready to help when Ryusaki and Igarashi came back to the resort with the dead body of the woman. Some of the staff had helped clear out the crowd, so it was a quick trip to the infirmary. Ai followed the doctor and nurse, using the same procedures as she had with Chiba-sensei's body to preserve any evidence she knew the police would need later. Two of the three beds in the infirmary were now occupied by corpses, and it was clear that there was unrest out around the resort.

Conan, for his part, had decided to interview Ryusaki-_bucho_, and together, they had identified the woman as Shima Chiaki. The manager had once again cooperated with Conan by letting him into the victim's room on the second floor of the right wing, just next to the stairs.

Conan walked around, noting that Shima-san was staying alone. The room was very much like the one he and Genta shared, but with one double bed. The window faced the inside of the complex, and he could see the dark shape of various structures in the central area, although most were now covered in snow. Shima-san was obviously a skier, with her own skis and equipment laid out around the room. She seemed organized, her toiletries lined up neatly in the bathroom. Conan noticed a glass of juice by her bedside table. He picked it up with his handkerchief and smelled it. It smelled very faintly of alcohol. Blended with the sweetness of the juice though, he thought it could be possible that Shima-san wouldn't necessarily notice.

However, that was extremely odd. Supposing Shima-san poured it herself, what was the point of adding the alcohol if it was so faint? And if it was offered by someone else, the amount of alcohol wouldn't be strong enough to induce any kind of inhibited state. He replaced the glass and searched the rest of the room. There were a few books on the desk which Conan flipped through; a slip of paper fell out onto the floor. Conan picked it up and examined it. It was handwritten in block letters and only said: "Your room, 8:00AM". He frowned and put it into one of the bags he was carrying.

"Did anyone ask about Shima-san before we found her?" Conan asked the manager.

Ryusaki shook his head. "Not at the front desk."

Conan tapped his chin thoughtfully. So, if Shima-san had received the note in the past 24 hours, then the writer of the note, who looked as though he or she hadn't asked about Shima-san missing their 8 o'clock appointment, was likely the culprit. That meant the time of death was probably sometime between 8:00 and when he and Ai found the body. Although speaking of that, Conan thought with a frown, how did the body get up to the shack?

"Other than the snowmobile, is there any other vehicle you use onsite?" Conan questioned.

"A few," Ryusaki replied. "We have some cars and trucks, but I don't think they would work that well in the storm."

"Can you take me to check them?"

The manager nodded, seeming to have resigned himself to being Conan's personal access around the resort. They made their way out to the equipment building, and Conan made his way past the rental snowboards and skis to the back of the building, where it led out to the garage. As Ryusaki had said, there were a few vehicles. Conan checked the tires, noting they were all dry and there were no signs of wet tracks anywhere. He moved down to the snowmobiles. Unlike the vehicles, there were wet tracks on the ground and Conan knelt down to examine them. He noticed there was a mess of wet tracks on the ground, some parts of it drier than others.

"Other than going up the slope for Shima-san's body, when was the last time someone used the snowmobiles?" Conan asked.

Ryusaki frowned, as though trying to remember. "Not since before the storm, I would say."

That was a couple of days ago, Conan thought to himself. Those tracks should have long since dried by now, which meant that the drier set of tracks was from the culprit taking the body up to the shack. While the moguls slope wasn't fully visible from the resort, guests looking out the window might still have thought it was strange if they saw someone on a snowmobile leaving the resort in this weather. It was difficult to say exactly though, since Conan knew firsthand that it was hard to see outside.

He walked around the snowmobile, looking for clues. There wasn't much, so he took pictures of the tracks and went to examine the door. It was a standard garage door, with electronic remotes that could be used to open and shut the door.

"Do you keep track of the remotes?" Conan questioned as he examined the check-out log for the vehicles. He took pictures of the pages from the past few days so he could compare it to the employee list later.

"They're kept locked up in the drawer," Ryusaki pointed to the ordinary desk the logbook was sitting on.

Conan pulled on the drawer. It slid out with no protest, much to the manager's surprise.

"They're _supposed_ to be locked up," he corrected with a frown.

Conan rifled through the drawer. There were only a few pens, some notepads, and five remote controls for the garage. There might be fingerprints on the remote controls, but he somehow doubted it. He shut it and turned to the manager. "What do you know about Shima-san?"

Ryusaki shrugged. "She was a guest that checked in alone. She skied and seemed a little jittery."

"She was jittery?" Conan echoed, suspicious. "About what?"

"I'm not sure. I never asked."

"Was there anything she said or did that you thought was out of the ordinary?"

"Um...," Ryusaki stammered. "Her room was booked and paid for months in advance. The records said cash, which was odd, but not unheard of. And she mentioned that it was nice to be skiing here again, so I remember thinking she must have been a customer of the old ski resort."

The cash part, Conan thought to himself, was odd, just as Ryusaki-_bucho_ had said. However, that lined up with the fact that someone was supposed to meet Shima-san in her room and didn't come asking for her when she didn't show up. It was entirely possible that this same someone paid for her room to get her to come to the resort.

"You wouldn't remember who paid, would you?"

"It was months ago, so no."

"Did she know Chiba-sensei?" Conan continued. There had to be a reason those two were the victims. Serial killings usually showed a pattern of some kind.

"Um, maybe in passing?" Ryusaki suggested. "Maybe he gave her skiing lessons at one point? He lived in Sapporo since he was very young, and had been teaching for years."

That wasn't really a solid connection, but Conan did think of something else as they walked back to the main building. He borrowed the landline at the front desk and called the Professor.

"Ah Shinichi," Agasa greeted him with enthusiasm over the line. "How's the trip?"

"We're snowed in." Conan quickly informed him of the situation for the past couple of days.

"That's..."

"A mess?" Conan supplied. "That's a nice way of putting it. I need to catch this guy, and fast."

"There's nothing unusual here that could help, I'm afraid," Agasa told him apologetically.

"I figured as much. I actually need you to look into something for me. The manager mentioned there was a murder of some kind at the resort that used to be here – _Hope Hills_. The case is over 7 years old. I need you to find out what you can about it. I feel like there's a connection somehow," Conan admitted.

"_Hope Hills_ in Otaru," Agasa muttered as he scribbled it down.

"I'll call you back tomorrow around this time," Conan said. "They've lost cell phone reception and the Internet is down as well."

Agasa promised to have something ready for him by then and hung up. Conan looked at the clock and realized it was evening already. His stomach protested angrily at the number of meals he had skipped, but it was past dinner time and he didn't think anyone wanted him, the only person in the world who would make _tea_ incorrectly, in the kitchen. Maybe Genta would have a stash of food somewhere in their room.

-o-o-o-o-o-

For about five seconds after he opened the door to the room he shared with Genta, Conan thought he had walked into the wrong place. The television was on. The sound was muted, and the screen alternated between weather reports and a fuzzy screen, meaning the reception was still having issues.

Mitsuhiko was sitting on the edge of Genta's bed, with one chair (which Conan noted didn't belong to the room) used as a makeshift desk. His laptop was sitting on top of the chair. A second chair was next to it, holding a...printer? Conan blinked and shifted his gaze to his own bed. Ai had a second laptop open, balanced on her knees. The Edgar Allan Poe book was open next to her and there were various papers strewn around her. However, the most obvious change was a large whiteboard on wheels which was standing in the middle of the room. Genta and Ayumi were standing in front of it, holding a notebook, different coloured markers, and a roll of tape.

"What in the...?" Conan blurted out as the door shut behind him.

"Conan-kun!" Ayumi reacted first. "Welcome back!"

"Um, yea. What are you guys doing?" he asked.

"Genta-kun was complaining at dinner that there's too much information to keep everything straight, so Haibara-san suggested putting things down on a whiteboard," Mitsuhiko filled in.

"Look! It's really helpful," Ayumi chimed in, turning the board so Conan can see.

Ayumi had drawn two parallel timelines at the top of the board, one for the murders and one for the disappearances. The estimated times for each set of crimes were blacked out. There were also somehow pictures of the murder victims with their names and occupation written out. A line was drawn between Shima-san and Chiba-sensei's pictures, with a large question mark. Pictures of the four girls who had disappeared lined up vertically on the right side of the board, and in Ayumi's neat handwriting, each name was printed next to their respective picture. Conan had to admit it was a great way to visually summarize the information.

"Mitsuhiko is going through the interviews," Genta added, "so we can see which suspects are left."

"Impressive," Conan couldn't help but admit with a smile. "One question." All three waited expectantly. "Where did all this stuff come from?"

"The business centre, mostly," Mitsuhiko admitted. "We just borrowed the board and the chairs. The printer is from Ryusaki-_bucho_'s office."

"You guys hijacked Ryusaki-_bucho_'s printer?!"

"Borrow, Conan! Borrow!" Genta corrected. "The front desk said it was okay if we write down our names and return it later."

"And the second laptop?" Conan asked curiously.

"This is Fujisaki-kun's," Ai answered without looking up. "He was gracious enough to let us borrow it for the time being. I'm just comparing the notes on the two bodies to see if there are any similarities."

Conan let out a tired sigh and made his way across the room, sitting down next to Ai on his bed as the other three went back to sorting through the interviews. "So what do we have?" he asked Ai.

"I think both bodies will test positive for some kind of knock-out drug," Ai stated. "Chiba-sensei died from an overdose, so more likely than not, an excess amount was in his food or drink. Alcohol would speed up the effect of the drugs if it was used. As for Shima-san, no reasonable person would just go out in this weather dressed the way she was, so she had to be knocked out and brought there."

"Hmm..." Conan murmured. "Alcohol's a great possibility." He told her what he had found in Shima-san's room. "It stands to reason that she was knocked out with some kind of alcohol mixed with some kind of drug when the person she was supposed to meet came by."

"But why?" Ai asked. "And for something as deliberate as leaving her outside to die. That's a lot of work. Wouldn't it have been easier just to dose her the same way Chiba-sensei was killed?"

Conan nodded. "It has to be for a very specific reason. The note also implied that she was killed for revenge, so something Shima-san did made someone very upset." He turned to the trio that was working on the whiteboard. "Did you guys find out anything about Shima-san? Like, is there anyone on the resort with some form of relationship to her?"

"Not a thing," Mitsuhiko admitted, looking over at them. "Shima-san checked in by herself, according to the front desk, and no one on the resort had more than a random passing interaction with her. It just seemed like she was taking a vacation by herself."

"No, she was lured here," Conan corrected. "And I think she frequented the old ski resort that was here." He explained briefly what he had found out. "By the way, did anyone mention to you seeing a snowmobile outside? Before Ai and I went out there, that is."

"Um..." Mitsuhiko flipped quickly through his notes. "Ah, here. There's a couple on the fourth floor of the right wing that mentioned looking outside and seeing a figure zoom by below, but they chalked it up to nothing after since the weather was so bad."

Conan perked up. "What time was that?"

"Before they went for breakfast," Mitsuhiko read. "Around 9:30."

"We have a time of death then," Conan said, nodding to Ayumi. "Shima-san died sometime between 9:30 this morning and 12:30, when Ai and I found the body."

"Probably closer between to 11:00 and 12:30," Ai chimed in, "since cause of death is likely hypothermia."

Ayumi marked down the three times on the timeline.

"Hey, Conan," Genta spoke up hesitantly. "Do you think there will be another one?"

Conan sighed. "Unfortunately, yes," he admitted. "There was note with the body. Just like the other note was a quote from '_The Cask of Amontillado_', this one was from '_The Murders in the Rue Morgue_'."

Ayumi, Genta, and Mitsuhiko all looked at him blankly. Conan sighed again and flopped down on his back onto the bed.

"They're stories from Edgar Allan Poe," he explained, closing his eyes. "Poe was a famous literary during the 1800's, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. He's generally considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre, although he was best known for some pretty morbid stories. In '_The Murders in the Rue Morgue_', the detective solves a locked-room mystery where two women were brutally killed."

"So the next victims will be two women?" Genta asked, looking confused.

"Not necessarily," Conan continued, his voice somewhat sleepy now. "In '_The Cask of Amontillado_', the victim was a man, and Shima-san was a woman. Besides, the culprit in '_The Murders in the Rue Morgue_' was an orangutan. I'll have to reread it to see if there's any other clue."

"Can we do it for you, Conan-kun?" Ayumi asked. "You looked tired."

Conan mumbled something incomprehensible, so Ai answered instead, "His book's in English." She pointed to the massive tome open on the bed. Genta looked like he lost a little bit of colour just realizing how thick the book was. "By the way, Meitantei-san, I reread it. The original actually is in French."

Instead of responding, Conan blindly reached for her and pulled on her waist. Ai let out a surprised squeak when she fell backwards onto the bed. He turned on his side and pulled her closer, hugging her to him and nuzzling her neck. "That's good," he mumbled, obviously half-asleep already. "Means I don't need to wonder why the culprit chose to write that part in French."

"What are you doing?!" Ai hissed. "Get off! You're heavy."

"Really, you two," Mitsuhiko interrupted dryly. "Get a room."

"I _am_ in a room," Conan grumbled, although Ai was sure she was the only person who could hear his muffled response.

She elbowed him in the ribs and he let out a loud "ouch", rolling over and rubbing his stomach. "Arg, what was that for?" he complained, opening his eyes. "I'm tired. I just need some sleep."

"Actually, what you need is food," Ai pointed out. "You skipped lunch _and_ dinner again, didn't you?"

Conan sighed. "Room service is closed already," he reminded her.

"Yes, we'll just borrow their kitchen," Ai shrugged, getting up.

"We're borrowing the kitchen too?" Now he sat up, feeling just a tad amused. How much stuff did his friends plan on 'borrowing'?

"Actually, Ai-chan, why don't Genta-kun and Mitsuhiko-kun and I go get some food from the kitchen?" Ayumi suggested. "We can't help with that note and I bet Genta-kun's hungry too."

Genta laughed sheepishly and scratched his head. "Do you think they have _unagi-don_?" he asked.

"We can check!" Ayumi promised.

Mitsuhiko got up from his position on Genta's bed and stretched. "I could use the walk too."

"Sure," Ai agreed. "Stay with Ayumi-chan though."

Genta and Mitsuhiko agreed and they made their way out of the room. Conan sighed and flopped back down onto his bed.

"Are you feeling okay?" Ai asked him. "It's not like you to just fall asleep while discussing a case."

"I really am tired," Conan admitted. "I feel like I've asked tons of questions, but I don't have any answers. I don't fully understand these notes; I haven't figured out the connection between the murder victims, or why some girls in our class were kidnapped."

"And you have no energy because you keep skipping meals," Ai pointed out with a frown.

"And because I haven't slept very well all throughout this trip, except that one night you seduced me in a _chair_," Conan added dryly.

She shrugged, smirking at him. "That hardly counted as seduction."

"Oh? Then what counts as seduction?"

"Well, first of all, somewhere without the chance of our friends walking in any moment with food," Ai replied.

Conan sat up and rubbed his face. "Alright, alright," he conceded. "Is there anything about the other guests you guys found out?"

Ai picked up Mitsuhiko's laptop and skimmed the notes. "Looks like most of the guests were families or friends, so a number of them have alibis," she summarized. "Funny thing here is that Uchida Ayako and Uchida Kyoko weren't together in our timeframes of interest."

"The mother-daughter we met the first day?"

"Yea. Ayako-san slept in the morning and read in the library by herself in the afternoon because she wasn't feeling well. Kyoko-san spent most of the day on the slopes but claimed she didn't know who could verify that she had been there," Ai elaborated.

"And they were the only other guests that didn't have alibis?" Conan questioned.

"Hmm... and Enomoto Haruki-san," Ai said. "He spent most of the day working on his articles in his room and only went for dinner around 7:00."

"That's still quite a few people to work with," Conan muttered to himself.

Ai got up and wrote the name of their suspects in the middle of the whiteboard. As she wrote, she asked him, "Did you have new thoughts about the note?"

"Only that I don't think the initials idea is exactly right," he answered. "If Chiba Ren is CL because Japanese doesn't have the letter 'L', Shima Chiaki should be SC, even if somehow we make a case for the C and X making similar sounds."

Ai frowned. "It has changed to LX on the new one," she reminded him.

Before they could discuss it further, their badges beeped in unison. Conan managed to reach for his first. "Hey," he answered.

"Um, Conan-kun," Ayumi's voice came over the badge in hushed tones.

Conan immediately became more alert. "Is something wrong?" he asked.

"I think there's someone following us," Ayumi whispered back.

"Where are you?" Conan said even as he clicked on the tracking glasses.

"Maybe about 20 meters from the kitchen," Ayumi estimated.

Conan dashed out of the room towards the stairs with Ai close on his heels, following the three blinking dots on his glasses down to the first floor.

-o-o-o-o-o-

End Chapter 5.

Word Count: 4,570  
Cumulative Word Count: 24,616

**Chitsu's Curiosity Corner:** I admit that was on purpose. I have to keep you interested somehow, right? :) A question I have for you guys: **Do you want an appendix?** Some reviewers from the last chapter mentioned they had trouble understanding the puzzles. Obviously, Conan's brief deduction in the last chapter was incomplete; the actual resolution should explain everything better, but there might be language and cultural things I don't explain in the story itself. I can also include some of my thoughts on the story if you're interested. Happy Halloween, and until next chapter~


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